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Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2025

_ https://archive.org/details/owb_T5-CWQ-188

The “Spray.”
From a photograph taken in Australian waters,

too

“vy

SAILING ALONE
AROUND THE WORLD

a
Captain Joshua Slocum

Ilustrated by
THOMAS FOGARTY AND GEORGE VARIAN

BLUE RIBBON BOOKS
NEW YORK

PRINTED IN U. S. A.

PRINTED BY THE CORNWALL PRESS, INC.
CORNWALL, N. Y.

TO THE ONE WHO SAID:
"THE ‘SPRAY’ WILL COME BACK."

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
PAGE

A blue-nose ancestry with Yankee proclivities — Youthful
fondness for the sea — Master of the ship Northern Light
— Loss of the Aquidneck — Return home from Brazil in
the canoe Liberdade—The gift of a “ ship” — The re-
building of the Spray — Conundrums in regard to finance
and calking — The launching of the Spray . à. i

CHAPTER II

Failure as a fisherman — A voyage around the world pro-
jected — From Boston to Gloucester — Fitting out for
the ocean voyage — Half of a dory for a ship’s boat —
The run from Gloucester to Nova Scotia — A shaking up
in home waters— Among old friends . . . H

CHAPTER III

Good-by to the Ameriean coast — Off Sable Island in afog
— In the open sea — The man in the moon takes an in-
terest in the voyage — The first fit of loneliness — The
Spray eneounters La Vagwisa — À bottle of wine from
the Spaniard — A bout of words with the captain of the
Java — The steamship Olympia spoken — Arrival at the
Azores š : x ; : : ; š

CHAPTER IV

Squally weather in the Azores — High living — Delirious
from cheese and plums — The pilot of the Pinta — At
Gibraltar — Compliments exehanged with the British
Savy — À picnic on the Morocco shore . . . . &

vii

viii CONTENTS

CHAPTER V
PAGE

Sailing from Gibraltar with the assistanee of her Majesty's
tug — The Spray’s course changed from the Suez Canal
to Cape Horn — Chased by a Moorish pirate — À eom-
parison with Columbus — The Canary Islands — The
Cape Verde Islands — Sea life — Arrival at Pernambuco
— A bill against the Brazilian government — Preparing
for the stormy weather of the cape . . e + . 900

CHAPTER VI

Departure from Rio de Janeiro — The Spray ashore on the
sands of Uruguay — A narrow escape from shipwreck —
The boy who found a sloop— The Spray floated but
somewhat damaged — Courtesies from the British consul
at Maldonado — À warm greeting at Montevideo — An
exeursion to Buenos Aires — Shortening the mast and
bowsprit: = os yas Peu tot, E42 Sev Lap E OO

CHAPTER VII

Weighing anchor at Buenos Aires — An outburst of emo-
tion at the mouth of the Plate — Submerged by a great
wave — A stormy entrance to the strait — Captain Sam-
blich’s happy gift of a bag of carpet-tacks — Off Cape
Froward — Chased by Indians from Fortescue Bay — A
miss-shot for ‘ Black Pedro” — Taking in supplies of
wood and water at Three Island Cove — Animal life . 79

CHAPTER VIII

Brom Cape Pillar into the Pacific — Driven by a tempest
toward Cape Horn — Captain Slocum’s greatest sea ad-
venture — Reaching the strait again by way of Cock-
burn Channel — Some savages find the carpet-tacks —
Danger from firebrands — A series of fierce williwaws —
Again sailing westward . . e e . > oe 98

CHAPTER IX

Vepairing the Spray's sails — Savages and an obstreperous
anehor— À spider-fight— An encounter with Black

CONTENTS ix

PA
Pedro — A visit to the steamship Colombia — On the de-
fensive against a fleet of canoes — A record of voyages
through the strait — A chance cargo of tallow . 110

CHAPTER X

Running to Port Angosto in a snow-storm — A defective
sheet-rope places the Spray in peril — The Spray as a
target for a Fuegian arrow — The island of Alan Errie —
Again in the open Pacific — The run to the island of
Juan Fernandez — An absentee king — At Robinson
Crusoe’s anchorage . : š £ A : š . 126

CHAPTER XI

The islanders of Juan Fernandez entertained with Yankee
doughnuts — The beauties of Robinson Crusoe's realm —
The mountain monument to Alexander Selkirk — Rob-
inson Crusoe's cave — A stroll with the children of the
island — Westward ho ! with a friendly gale — A month's
free sailing with the Southern Cross and the sun for
guides — Sighting the Marquesas — Experience in reck-
oning . ` ə ç ALT A A aym abate Ps

CHAPTER XII

Seventy-two days without a port — Whales and birds— A
peep into the Spray’s galley — Flying-fish for breakfast
— A welcome at Apia — A visit from Mrs. Robert Louis
Stevenson— At Vailima — Samoan hospitality — Ar-
rested for fast riding — An amusing merry-go-round —
Teachers and pupils of Papauta College — At the mercy
GE Sea- Nypi CM NM EE i

CHAPTER XIII

Samoan royalty — King Malietoa — Good-by to friends at
Vailima — Leaving Fiji to the south — Arrival at New-
eastle, Australia — The yachts of Sydney — A. ducking
on the Spray — Commodore Foy presents the sloop with
a new suit of sails — On to Melbourne — A shark that
proved to be valuable— A change of course — The
* Rain of Blood? —In Tasmania . + + - . 164

x CONTENTS

CHAPTER XIV
PAGS

A testimonial from a lady — Cruising round Tasmania —
The skipper delivers his first lecture on the voyage —
Abundant provisions — An inspection of the Spray
for safety at Devonport — Again at Sydney — North-
ward bound for Torres Strait — An amateur shipwreck
— Friends on the Australian coast— Perils of a coral
ROH Or Us eL un e Er Sere ee ae . 180

CHAPTER XV

Arrival at Port Denison, Queensland — A lecture — Rem-
iniscences of Captain Cook — Lecturing for charity at
Cooktown — À happy escape from a coral reef — Home
Island, Sunday Island, Bird Island— An Ameriean
pearl-fisherman — Jubilee at Thursday Island — À new
ensign for the Spray — Booby Island — Aeross the In-
dian Ocean — Christmas Island : < . . . 194

CHAPTER XVI

A call for careful navigation — Three hours’ steering in
twenty-three days — Arrival at the Keeling Cocos Is-
lands —À curious chapter of social history — A welcome
from the children of the islands — Cleaning and painting
the Spray on the beach — A Mohammedan blessing for a
pot of jam — Keeling as a paradise — A risky adventure
in à small boat — Away to Rodriguez — Taken for Anti-
ehrist — The governor ealms the fears of the Pope —A
lecture — A convent in the hils . . . . 210

CHAPTER XVII

A clean bill of health at Mauritius — Sailing the voyage
over again in the opera-house — A newly discovered
plant named in honor of the Spray's skipper — A. party
of young ladies out for a sail — A bivouae on deck — A
warm reception at Durban — A friendly cross-examina-
tion by Henry M. Stanley — Three wise Boers seek proof
of the flatness of the earth — Leaving South Africa . 226

CONTENTS xi

CHAPTER XVIII
PAGB

Rounding the “ Cape of Storms” in olden time — A rough
Christmas — The Spray ties up for a three months’ rest
at Cape Town— A railway trip to the Transvaal —
President Kruger’s odd definition of the Spray’s voyage
— His terse sayings — Distinguished guests on the Spray
— Cocoanut fiber as a padlock — Courtesies from the
admiral of the Queen's navy — Off for St. Helena —
Land in sight . AO Uwe o erae. COMES D, (i)

CHAPTER XIX

In the isle of Napoleon’s exile — Two lectures — A guest
in the ghost-room at Plantation House — An exeursion
to historie Longwood — Coffee in the husk, and a goat
to shell it — The Spray’s ill lack with animals — A preju-
dice against small dogs — A rat, the Boston spider, and
the cannibal cricket — Ascension Island . š ° . 262

CHAPTER XX

In the favoring current off Cape St. Roque, Brazil — All
ai sea regarding the Spanish-Ameriean war — An ex-
ehange of signals with the battle-ship Oregon — Off Drey-
fus's prison on Devil's Island — Reappearance to the
Spray of the north star — The light on Trinidad — A
charming introduction to Grenada — Talks to friendly
auditors . NE^ rd coe KA . ci heme aoe

CHAPTER XXI

Clearing for home — In the calm belt — A sea covered with
sargasso — The jibstay parts in a gale —Weleomed by a
tornado off Fire Island — A change of plan — Arrival at
Newport — End of a cruise of over forty-six thousand
miles— The Spray again at Fairhaven . . . . 272

xii CONTENTS

APPENDIX
LINES AND SAIL-PLAN OF THE *gPRAY?

Her! pedigree so far as known — The lines of the Spray —
Her self-steering qualities — Sail-plan and steering-gear
— An unprecedented feat— A final word of cheer to
would-be navigators . ° ° ° . 5 Š » 283

PAGE

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

THE “Spray” Sa ee ovo 0 ed Wine UP ronnsmece
From a photograph taken in Australian waters.

THe “NorTHERN Licut,” CAPTAIN JOSHUA SLOCUM,

BOUND For LIVERPOOL, 1885 . : : ° s :

CROSS-SECTION OF THE “ SPRAY” ait ton sas 2.
“Tr TL CRAWL” , 5 c : ° . °. ° °
“No DORG NOR NO CAT” , : : 35 x $e
THE DEACON’S DREAM. : 5 : sa Sta de ;
CAPTAIN SLocuw's CHRONOMETER . ua AAA
“Goop EVENING, SIR? . 3 eds fat EP OR MOOR

S à Ë ë & ea w

HE ALSO SENT HIS CARD . ; ° f P š Ó

CHART OF THE "SPRAY'S" COURSE AROUND THE WORLD
— APRIL 24, 1895, To JULY 3, 1888 . . . . 30

THE ISLAND OF PICO . : P 3 ^ ` A 292

CHART oF THE ‘“Spray’s” ATLANTIC VOYAGES FROM
Boston TO GIBRALTAR, THENCE TO THE STRAIT OF
MAGELLAN, IN 1895, AND FINALLY HOMEWARD BOUND
FROM THE CAPE OF Goop Hops IN 1898 ; : . 99

THE APPARITION AT THE WHEEL . > >> oè | 40
COMING TO ANCHOR AT GIBRALTAR . + «© «© 45
THE “Spray” AT ANCHOR OFF GIBRALTAR , © . 44
CHASED BY PIRATES! o Qo 5-2. 1. ^e o, oS

aes

xiv LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

I SUDDENLY REMEMBERED THAT I COULD NOT Swm . 67
A DouBLE SURPRISE . : : 5 ° . ° . 70
AT THE SIGN OF THE COMET . : ¿ ° . ud
A GREAT WAVE OFF THE PATAGONIAN COAST 5 . 80
ENTRANCE TO THE STRAIT OF MAGELLAN š : 288

THE COURSE or THE “SPRAY” THROUGH THE STRAIT
OF MAGELLAN . 2 . ^ š : . : 2

THE MAN WHO WOULD N T SHIP WITHOUT ANOTHER
“ MoN AND A Dooe” £ 7 $ : 5 5 i

A FUEGIAN GIRL. 5 : A 5 : A ó E

88
LookiNa WEST FROM FonTEsCUE BAY, WHERE THE

“SPRAY” WAS CHASED BY INDIANS : s; ° . 90

A BRUSH WITH FUEGIANS . ° : ë š A 3
A BIT OF FRIENDLY ASSISTANCE A 4 è ° 4

CAPE PILLAR ; 3 : ° 6 ; : : :
THEY HowLED LIKE A PACK or HOUNDS. 4 4 . 104
A GLIMPSE or SANDY PorwT (PUNTA ARENAS) IN THE
STRAIT OF MAGELLAN . : a : 4 ; . 107
“ Y AMMERSCHOONER ! ? : - A : : : . 114

A CONTRAST IN LiaHTING — THE ELECTRIC LIGHTS OF
THE “ COLOMBIA” AND THE CANOE FIRES OF THE FOR-

TESCUE INDIANS : j : , s À ; . 119
RECORDS or PASSAGES THROUGH THE STRAIT AT THE

Heap or Borea BAY . : > : : : . 122
SALVING WRECKAGE . : : ; $ ^ ° . 124
THE First SHOT UNCOVERED THREE FUEGIANS . . 129
THE “SPRAY ” APPROACHING JUAN FERNANDEZ, ROBINSON

CRUSOE'S ISLAND A : 5 ° A : 5 . 135
THE HOUSE or THE KING . 5 : : ; 5 . 139
ROBINSON CRUSOE’S CAVE . : : ; TUAM, . 146

THE MAN WHO CALLED A CABRA A GoaT š n . 143

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xv

MRETING WITH THE WHALE . e . .,
First EXCHANGE OF COURTESIES IN SAMOA . . ..104
VAILIMA, THE Home or ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON . 156
THE “Spray’s” COURSE FROM AUSTRALIA TO SOUTH

AFRICA. . Š š A E A ° è è . 160
THE ACCIDENT AT SYDNEY. : š š ë è . 169
CAPTAIN SLOCUM WORKING THE ' SPRAY” OUT OF THE

YARROW RIVER, A PART OF MELBOURNE HARBOR . 173
THE SHARK ON THE DECK OF THE “Spray” , a . 175
On BOARD AT ST. KILDA. RETRACING ON THE CHART

THE COURSE OF THE “SPRAY” FROM BOSTON . . 178
THE “Spray” IN HER PORT DUSTER AT DEVONPORT,

TASMANIA, FEBRUARY 22, 1897 Nocera tomes UN Ee
“Ts rr A-aorN TO BLOW?” $ : š š B . 188

Tue “Spray” LEAVING SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA, IN THE NEW
SUIT or Sams GIVEN BY COMMODORE Foy or Avs-

TRALIA : : : : - : ^ š ; . 197
THE “Spray” ASHORE FOR “ BooT-TOPPING” AT THE

KEELING ISLANDS . É 5 > : : A . 215
CAPTAIN SLOCUM DRIFTING OUT TO BEA . oe . 220
THE “Spray” AT MAURITIUS . 3 e Thu ad oS . 227
CAPTAIN JOSHUA SLOCUM . . S S Meo V . 235

CARTOON PRINTED IN THE CAPE Town “Owl” or
Marca 5, 1898, IN CONNECTION WITH AN ITEM ABOUT
CAPTAIN Snocuw!'s Trip TO PRETORIA . i 3 . 244

CAPTAIN SLOCUM, SIR ALFRED MILNER (WITH THE TALL
HaT), AND COLONEL SAUNDERSON, M. P., oN THE Bow
or THE “Spray” AT CAPE TOWN. . . . 2I

READING Day AND NIGHT . AU Carrs SERED ONERE DARE S
THE “Spray” PASSED BY THE “ OREGON” e J . 265

xvi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

AGAIN TIED TO THE OLD STAKE AT FAIRHAVEN
PLAN OF THE AFTER CABIN OF THE ‘‘ SPRAY”

DECK-PLAN OF THE “ SPRAY” ,
SAIL-PLAN OF THE “ SPRAY”
STEERING-GEAR OF THE “SpRay”
Bopy-PLAN OF THE “ SPRAY”
LINES OF THE “Spray” , ,

SAILING ALONE
AROUND THE WORLD

SAILING ALONE AROUND
THE WORLD

CHAPTER I

A blue-nose ancestry with Yankee proclivities — Youthful fondness
for the sea — Master of the ship Northern Light— Loss of the
Aquidneck — Return home from Brazil in the canoe Liberdade —
The gift of a * ship" — The rebuilding of the Spray — Conundrums
in regard to finance and calking — The launching of the Spray.

N the fair land of Nova Scotia, a maritime prov-
inee, there is a ridge called North Mountain,
overlooking the Bay of Fundy on one side and
the fertile Annapolis valley on the other. On the
northern slope of the range grows the hardy spruce-
tree, well adapted for ship-timbers, of which many
vessels of all classes have been built. The people
of this coast, hardy, robust, and strong, are disposed
to compete in the world's commerce, and it is
nothing against the master mariner if the birth-
place mentioned on his certificate be Nova Scotia.
I was born in a cold spot, on coldest North Moun-
1

2 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

tain, on a cold February 20, though I am a citizen
of the United States — à naturalized Yankee, if it
may be said that Nova Seotians are not Yankees
in the truest sense of the word. On both sides my
family were sailors; and if any Slocum should be
found not seafaring, he will show at least an inclina-
tion to whittle models of boats and contemplate
voyages. My father was the sort of man who, if
wrecked on a desolate island, would find his way
home, if he had a jack-knife and could find a tree.
He was a good judge of a boat, but the old clay
farm which some calamity made his was an anchor
to him. He was not afraid of a capful of wind, and
he never took a back seat at a camp-meeting or a
good, old-fashioned revival.

As for myself, the wonderful sea charmed me
from the first. At the age of eight I had already
been afloat along with other boys on the bay,
with chances greatly in favor of being drowned.
When a lad I filled the important post of cook on
a fishing-schooner; but I was not long in the gal-
ley, for the crew mutinied at the appearance of my
first duff, and “chucked me out” before I had a
chance to shine as a culinary artist. The next step
toward the goal of happiness found me before the
mast in a full-rigged ship bound on a foreign voy-
age. Thus I came “over the bows,” and not in
through the cabin windows, to the command of a
ship.

My best command was that of the magnificent
ship Northern Light, of which I was part-owner. I
had a right to be proud of her, for at that time —
in the eighties — she was the finest American sail-

MASTER OF THE SHIP “NORTHERN LIGHT” 3

ing-vessel afloat. Afterward I owned and sailed
the Aquidneck, a little bark which of all man's
handiwork seemed to me the nearest to perfection
of beauty, and which in speed, when the wind
blew, asked no favors of steamers. I had been
nearly twenty years a shipmaster when I quit her

Drawn by W. Taber.

The Northern Light, Captain Joshua Slocum,
bound for Liverpool, 1885.

deck on the coast of Brazil, where she was wrecked.
My home voyage to New York with my family was
made in the canoe Liberdade, without accident.

My voyages were all foreign. Isailed as freighter
and trader principally to China, Australia, and
Japan, and among the Spice Islands. Mine was
not the sort of life to make one long to coil up
one's ropes on land, the customs and ways of which
I had finally almost forgotten. And so when times

4 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

for freighters got bad, as at last they did, and I
tried to quit the sea, what was there for an old sailor
todo? Iwas born in the breezes, and I had studied
the sea as perhaps few men have studied it, neglect-
ing all else. Next in attractiveness, after seafar-
ing, came ship-building. I longed to be master in
both professions, and in a small way, in time, I ac-
complished my desire. From the decks of stout
ships in the worst gales I had made calculations as
to the size and sort of ship safest for all weather
and all seas. Thus the voyage which I am now to
narrate was a natural outcome not only of my love
of adventure, but of my lifelong experience.

One midwinter day of 1892, in Boston, where I
had been cast up from old ocean, so to speak, a year
or two before, I was cogitating whether I should
apply for a command, and again eat my bread and
butter on the sea, or go to work at the shipyard,
when I met an old acquaintance, a whaling-captain,
who said: “Come to Fairhaven and I'll give you a
ship. But,” he added, “she wants some repairs.”
The captain’s terms, when fully explained, were
more than satisfactory to me. They included all
the assistance I would require to fit the craft for
sea. J was only too glad to accept, for I had al-
ready found that I could not obtain work in the
shipyard without first paying fifty dollars to a so-
ciety, and as for a ship to command — there were
not enough ships to go round. Nearly all our tall
vessels had been eut down for coal-barges, and were
being ignominiously towed by the nose from port
to port, while many worthy captains addressed
themselves to Sailors’ Snug Harbor.

THE GIFT OF A SHIP 5

The next day I landed at Fairhaven, opposite
New Bedford, and found that my friend had some:
thing of a joke on me. For seven years the joke
had been on him. The “ship” proved to be a very

. antiquated sloop called the Spray, which the neigh-
bors declared had been built in the year 1. She
was affectionately propped up in a field, some dis-
tance from salt water, and was covered with canvas.
The people of Fairhaven, I hardly need say, are
thrifty and observant. For seven years they had
asked, “I wonder what Captain Eben Pierce is
going to do with the old Spray?” The day I ap-
peared there was a buzz at the gossip exchange:
at last some one had come and was actually at work
on the old Spray. “Breaking her up, I s’pose?”
“No; going to rebuild her?” Great was the amaze-
ment. “ Will it pay?” was the question which for
a year or more I answered by declaring that I
would make it pay.

My ax felled a stout oak-tree near by for a keel,
and Farmer Howard, for a small sum of money,
hauled in this and enough timbers for the frame
of the new vessel. I rigged a steam-box and a
pot for a boiler. The timbers for ribs, being
straight saplings, were dressed and steamed till
supple, and then bent over a log, where they
were secured till set. Something tangible ap-
peared every day to show for my labor, and the
neighbors made the work sociable. It was a great
day in the Spray shipyard when her new stem was
set up and fastened to the new keel. Whaling-
captains came from far to survey it. With one voice
they pronounced it “ A 1,” and in their opinion “ fit

6 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

to smash ice.” The oldest captain shook my hand
warmly when the breast-hooks were put in, declar-
ing that he could see no reason why the Spray
should not “cut in bow-head” yet off the coast of
Greenland. The much-esteemed stem-piece was
from the butt of the smartest kind of a pasture
oak. It afterward split a coral patch in two at the
Keeling Islands, and did not receive a blemish.
Better timber for a ship than pasture white oak
never grew. The breast-hooks, as well as all the
ribs, were of this wood, and were steamed and bent
into shape as required. It was hard upon March
when I began work in earnest; the weather was
cold; still, there were plenty of inspectors to back
me with advice. When a whaling-captain hove
in sight I just rested on my adz awhile and
“gammed” with him.

New Bedford, the home of whaling-captains, is
connected with Fairhaven by a bridge, and the
walking is good. They never “worked along up”
to the shipyard too often for me. It was the
charming tales about arctic whaling that inspired
me to put a double set of breast-hooks in the Spray,
that she might shunt ice.

The seasons came quickly while I worked.
Hardly were the ribs of the sloop up before apple-
trees were in bloom. Then the daisies and the
cherries came soon after. Close by the place where
the old Spray had now dissolved rested the ashes
of John Cook, a revered Pilgrim father. So the
new Spray rose from hallowed ground. From the
deck of the new craft I could put out my hand and
pick cherries that grew over the little grave. The

THE REBUILDING OF THE “SPRAY” 7

planks for the new vessel, whieh I soon came to put
on, were of Georgia pine an inch and a half thick.
The operation of putting them on was tedious, but,
when on, the calking was easy. The outward edges
stood slightly open to receive the calking, but the
inner edges were so close that I could not see day-
light between them. All the butts were fastened by
through bolts, with screw-
nuts tightening them to
the timbers, so that there «E
would be no complaint |
from them. Many bolts
with serew-nuts were used
in other parts of the con-
struction, in all about a
thousand. It was my pur-
pose to make my vessel
stout and strong.
Now,itisalaw in Lloyd's
that the Jane repaired all
out of the old until she is
entirely new is still the Jane. The Spray changed
her being so gradually that it was hard to say at
what point the old died or the new took birth,
and it was no matter. 'The bulwarks I built up
of white-oak stanchions fourteen inches high,
and eovered with seven-eighth-inch white pine.
These stanchions, mortised through a two-inch
eovering-board, I calked with thin cedar wedges.
They have remained perfectly tight ever since.
The deck I made of one-and-a-half-inch by three-
inch white pine spiked to beams, six by six inches,
of yellow or Georgia pine, placed three feet apart.

SSSOIÁÓà>J
i Lida.
Cross-section of the Spray.

8 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

The deck-inelosures were one over the aperture
of the main hatch, six feet by six, for a cook-
ing-galley, and a trunk farther aft, about ten feet
by twelve, for a cabin. Both of these rose about
three feet above the deck, and were sunk suf-
ficiently into the hold to afford head-room. In
the spaces along the sides of the cabin, under the
deck, I arranged a berth to sleep in, and shelves
for small storage, not forgetting a place for the
medicine-chest. In the midship hold, that is, the
space between cabin and galley, under the deck,
was room for provision of water, salt beef, eto.,
ample for many months.

The hull of my vessel being now put together as
strongly as wood and iron could make her, and the
various rooms partitioned off, I set about “ calking
ship? Grave fears were entertained by some that
at this point I should fail. I myself gave some
thought to the advisability of a “ professional
ealker.” The very first blow I struck on the cotton
with the calking-iron, which I thought was right,
many others thought wrong. “It ’ll crawl!” cried
a man from Marion, passing with a basket of clams
on his back. “It'll crawl!” cried another from
West Island, when he saw me driving cotton
into the seams. Bruno simply wagged his tail.
Even Mr. Ben J——, a noted authority on whaling-
ships, whose mind, however, was said to totter,
asked rather confidently if I did not think ‘it
would crawl.” “ How fast will it crawl?” cried my
old captain friend, who had been towed by many
a lively sperm-whale. “Tell us how fast,” cried
he, “that we may get into port in time.” How-

Ln |
Hi

<
It "ll crawl”

10 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

ever, I drove a thread of oakum on top of the
cotton, as from the first I had intended to do.
And Bruno again wagged his tail The cotton
never “crawled.” When the calking was finished,
two coats of copper paint were slapped on the bot-
tom, two of white lead on the topsides and bul-
warks. The rudder was then shipped and painted,
and on the following day the Spray was launched.
As she rode at her ancient, rust-eaten anchor, she
sat on the water like a swan.

The Spray’s dimensions were, when finished,
thirty-six feet nine inches long, over all, fourteen
feet two inches wide, and four feet two inches deep
in the hold, her tonnage being nine tons net and
twelve and seventy-one hundredths tons gross.

Then the mast, a smart New Hampshire spruce,
was fitted, and likewise all the small appurtenances
necessary for a short cruise. Sails were bent, and
away she flew with my friend Captain Pierce and
me, across Buzzard’s Bay on a trial-trip—all right.
The only thing that now worried my friends along
the beach was, “Will she pay?” The cost of my
new vessel was $553.62 for materials, and thirteen
months of my own labor. I was several months
more than that at Fairhaven, for I got work now
and then on an occasional whale-ship fitting farther
down the harbor, and that kept me the overtime.

CHAPTER II

Failure as a fisherman — À voyage around the world projected —
From Boston to Gloucester — Fitting out for the ocean voyage —
Half of a dory for a ship's boat— The run from Gloucester to
Nova Scotia — A shaking up in home waters — Among old friends.

SPENT a season in my new craft fishing on

the coast, only to find that I had not the cun-
ning properly to bait a hook. But at last the time
arrived to weigh anchor and get to sea in earnest.
I had resolved on a voyage around the world, and
as the wind on the morning of April 24, 1895, was
fair, at noon I weighed anchor, set sail, and filled
away from Boston, where the Spray had been
moored snugly all winter. The twelve-o’clock whis-
tles were blowing just as the sloop shot ahead under
full sail. A short board was made up the harbor
on the port tack, then coming about she stood sea-
ward, with her boom well off to port, and swung
past the ferries with lively heels. A photographer
on the outer pier at East Boston got a picture of her
as she swept by, her flag at the peak throwing its
folds clear. A thrilling pulse beat high in me. My
step was light on deck in the crisp air. I felt that
there could be no turning back, and that I was en-
gaging in an adventure the meaning of which I
thoroughly understood. I had taken little advice

12 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

from any one, for I had a right to my own opinions
in matters pertaining to the sea. That the best of
sailors might do worse than even I alone was borne
in upon me not a league from Boston docks, where
a great steamship, fully manned, officered, and pi-
loted, lay stranded and broken. This was the Ve-
netian. She was broken completely in two over a
ledge. Soin the first hour of my lone voyage I had
proof that the Spray could at least do better than
this full-handed steamship, for I was already farther
on my voyage than she. “Take warning, Spray,
and have a care,” I uttered aloud to my bark, pass-
ing fairylike silently down the bay.

The wind freshened, and the Spray rounded Deer
Island light at the rate of seven knots.

Passing it, she squared away direct for Gloucester
to proeure there some fishermen's stores. Waves
daneing joyously aeross Massachusetts Bay met
her coming out of the harbor to dash them into
myriads of sparkling gems that hung about her at
every surge. The day was perfect, the sunlight
clear and strong. Every particle of water thrown
into the air became a gem, and the Spray, bound-
ing ahead, snatched necklace after necklace from
the sea, and as often threw them away. We have
all seen miniature rainbows about a ship’s prow,
but the Spray flung out a bow of her own that
day, such as I had never seen before. Her good
angel had embarked on the voyage; I so read it
in the sea.

Bold Nahant was soon abeam, then Marblehead
was put astern. Other vessels were outward bound,
but none of them passed the Spray flying along on

FROM BOSTON TO GLOUCESTER 13

her eourse. I heard the clanking of the dismal bell
on Norman's Woe as we went by; and the reef
where the schooner Hesperus struck I passed close
aboard. The “bones” of a wreck tossed up lay
bleaching on the shore abreast. The wind still
freshening, I settled the throat of the mainsail to
ease the sloop’s helm, for I could hardly hold her
before it with the whole mainsail set. A schooner
ahead of me lowered all sail and ran into port
under bare poles, the wind being fair. As the
Spray brushed by the stranger, I saw that some of
his sails were gone, and much broken canvas hung
in his rigging, from the effects of a squall.

I made for the cove, a lovely branch of Glou-
eester's fine harbor, again to look the Spray over
and again to weigh the voyage, and my feelings,
and all that. The bay was feather-white as my
little vessel tore in, smothered in foam. lt was my
first experience of coming into port alone, with a
eraft of any size, and in among shipping. Old
fishermen ran down to the wharf for which the
Spray was heading, apparently intent upon brain-
ing herself there. I hardly know how a calamity
was averted, but with my heart in my mouth,
almost, I let go the wheel, stepped quickly forward,
and downed the jib. The sloop naturally rounded
in the wind, and just ranging ahead, laid her cheek
against a mooring-pile at the windward corner
of the wharf, so quietly, after all, that she would
not have broken an egg. Very leisurely I passed
a rope around the post, and she was moored. Then
a eheer went up from the little erowd on the wharf.
“You could n't ’a’ done it better,” eried an old

14 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

skipper, ^if you weighed a ton!” Now, my weight
was rather less than the fifteenth part of a ton,
but I said nothing, only putting on a look of care-
less indifference to say for me, “Oh, that ’s no-
thing”; for some of the ablest sailors in the world
were looking at me, and my wish was not to appear
green, for I had a mind to stay in Gloucester sev-
eraldays. Had I uttered a word it surely would
have betrayed me, for I was still quite nervous and
short of breath.

I remained in Gloucester about two weeks, fit-
ting out with the various articles for the voyage
most readily obtained there. The owners of the
wharf where I lay, and of many fishing-vessels, put
on board dry eod galore, also a barrel of oil to calm
the waves. 'They were old skippers themselves,
and took a great interest in the voyage. They also
made the Spray a present of a “ fisherman's own”
lantern, which I found would throw a light a great
distance round. Indeed, a ship that would run
another down having such a good light aboard
would be capable of running into a light-ship. A
gaff, à pugh, and a dip-net, all of which an old
fisherman declared I could not sail without, were
also put aboard. Then, too, from across the cove
came a case of copper paint, a famous antifouling
article, which stood me in good stead long after.
I slapped two coats of this paint on the bottom of
the Spray while she lay a tide or so on the hará
beach.

For a boat to take along, I made shift to cut a
eastaway dory in two athwartships, boarding up
the end where it was cut. This half-dory I could

FITTING OUT FOR THE OCEAN VOYAGE 15

hoist in and out by the nose easily enough, by hook-
ing the throat-halyards into a strop fitted for the
purpose. A whole dory would be heavy and awk-
ward to handle alone. Manifestly there was not
room on deck for more than the half of a boat,which,
after all, was better than no boat at all, and was large
enough for one man. I perceived, moreover, that
the newly arranged craft would answer for a wash-
ing-machine when placed athwartships, and also for
a bath-tub. Indeed, for the former office my razeed
dory gained such a reputation on the voyage that
my washerwoman at Samoa would not take no for
an answer. She could see with one eye that it was
a new invention which beat any Yankee notion
ever brought by missionaries to the islands, and
She had to have it.

The want of a chronometer for the voyage was
all that now worried me. In our newfangled no-
tions of navigation it is supposed that a mariner
eannot find his way without one; and I had myself
drifted into this way of thinking. My old chro-
nometer, a good one, had been long in disuse. It
would cost fifteen dollars to clean and rateit. Fif-
teen dollars! For suffieient reasons I left that
timepiece at home, where the Dutchman left his
anchor. I had the great lantern, and a lady in
Boston sent me the price of a large two-burner
eabin lamp, which lighted the cabin at night, and
by some small contriving served for a stove through
the day.

Being thus refitted I was once more ready for sea,
and on May 7 again made sail. "With little room in
which to turn, the Spray, in gathering headway,

16 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

scratehed the paint off an old, fine-weather craft in
the fairway, being puttied and painted for a sum-
mer voyage. “ Who'"ll pay for that?” growled the
painters. ^Iwill"saidl. “ With the main-sheet,”
echoed the captain of the Bluebird, close by, which
was his way of saying that I was off. There was
nothing to pay for above five cents’ worth of paint,
maybe, but such a din was raised between the old
“hooker” and the Bluebird, which now took up my
case, that the first cause of it was forgotten alto-
gether. Anyhow, no bill was sent after me.

The weather was mild on the day of my depar-
ture from Gloucester. On the point ahead, as the
Spray stood out of the cove, was a lively picture,
for the front of a tall factory was a flutter of hand-
kerchiefs and caps. Pretty faces peered out of the
windows from the top to the bottom of the build-
ing, all smiling bon voyage. Some hailed me to
know where away and why alone. Why? When
I made as if to stand in, a hundred pairs of arms
reached out, and said come, but the shore was dan-
gerous! The sloop worked out of the bay against
a light southwest wind, and about noon squared
away off Eastern Point, receiving at the same time
a hearty salute — the last of many kindnesses to
her at Gloucester. The wind freshened off the
point, and skipping along smoothly, the Spray was
soon off Thatcher’s Island lights. Thence shaping
her course east, by compass, to go north of Cashes
Ledge and the Amen Rocks, I sat and considered
the matter all over again, and asked myself once
more whether it were best to sail beyond the ledge
and rocks at all. I had only said that I would sail

THE RUN FROM GLOUCESTER TO NOVA. SCOTIA 17

round the world in the Spray, * dangers of the sea
excepted," but I must have said it very much in
earnest. The “ charter-party” with myself seemed
to bind me, and so I sailed on. Toward night I
hauled the sloop to the wind, and baiting a hook,
sounded for bottom-fish, in thirty fathoms of
water, on the edge of Cashes Ledge. With fair
success I hauled till dark, landing on deck three
eod. and two haddocks, one hake, and, best of all, a
small halibut, all plump and spry. This, I thought,
would be the place to take in a good stock of pro-
visions above what I already had; so I put out a
sea-anchor that would hold her head to windward.
The current being southwest, against the wind, I
felt quite sure I would find the Spray still on the
bank or near it in the morning. Then “strad-
ding? the cable and putting my great lantern in
the rigging, I lay down, for the first time at sea
alone, not to sleep, but to doze and to dream.

I had read somewhere of a fishing-schooner hook-
ing her anchor into a whale, and being towed a
long way and at great speed. This was exactly
what happened to the Spray—in my dream! I
eould not shake it off entirely when I awoke and
found that it was the wind blowing and the
heavy sea now running that had disturbed my short
rest. A scud was flying across the moon. A storm
was brewing; indeed, it was already stormy. I
reefed the sails, then hauled in my sea-anchor, and
setting what canvas the sloop could earry, headed
her away for Monhegan light, which she made before
daylight on the morning of the 8th. The wind be-
ing free, I ran on into Round Pond harbor, which

18 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

is a little port east from Pemaquid. Here I rested
& day, while the wind rattled among the pine-trees
on shore. But the following day was fine enough,

* * No dorg nor no eat.”

and I put to sea, first writing up my log from Cape
Ann, not omitting a full account of my adventure
with the whale.

THE RUN FROM GLOUCESTER TO NOVA SCOTIA 19

The Spray, heading east, stretched along the
eoast among many islands and over a tranquil sea.
At evening of this day, May 10, she came up with
a considerable island, which I shall always think of
as the Island of Frogs, for the Spray was charmed
by à million voices. From the Island of Frogs we
made for the Island of Birds, called Gannet Island,
and sometimes Gannet Rock, whereon is a bright,
intermittent light, which flashed fitfully across the
Spray's deck as she coasted along under its light
and shade. Thence shaping a course for Briar’s
Island, I came among vessels the following after-
noon on the western fishing-grounds, and after
speaking a fisherman at anchor, who gave me a
wrong course, the Spray sailed directly over the
southwest ledge through the worst tide-race in the
Bay of Fundy, and got into Westport harbor in
Nova Scotia, where I had spent eight years of my
life as a lad.

The fisherman may have said “ east-southeast,”
the course I was steering when 1 hailed him; but I
thought he said “ east-northeast,” and I accordingly
changed it to that. Before he made up his mind
to answer me at all, he improved the occasion of
his own curiosity to know where I was from, and
if I was alone, and if I did n* have “no dorg nor
no cat.” It was the first time in all my life at sea
that I had heard a hail for information answered
by a question. I think the chap belonged to the
Foreign Islands. There was one thing I was sure
of, and that was that he did not belong to Briar’s
Island, beeause he dodged a sea that slopped over
the rail, and stopping to brush the water from his

20 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

face, lost a fine cod which he was about to ship.
My islander would not have done that. Itis known
that a Briar Islander, fish or no fish on his hook,
never flinches from a sea. He just tends to his
lines and hauls or “saws.” Nay, have I not seen
my old friend Deacon W. D——. à good man of the

'The deacon's dream.

island, while listening to a sermon in the little
church on the hill, reach out his hand over the
door of his pew and * jig" imaginary squid in the
aisle, to the intense delight of the young people,
who did not realize that to catch good fish one
must have good bait, the thing most on the dea-
con’s mind.

I was delighted to reach Westport. Any port at
all would have been delightful after the terrible
thrashing I got in the fierce sou'west rip, and to

AMONG OLD FRIENDS 21

find myself among old schoolmates now was charm-
ing. It was the 13th of the month, and 13 is my
lucky number— a fact registered long before Dr.
Nansen sailed in search of the north pole with his
erew of thirteen. Perhaps he had heard of my
success in taking a most extraordinary ship success-
fully to Brazil with that number of crew. The very
stones on Briar's Island I was glad to see again,
and I knew them all. The little shop round the
corner, which for thirty-five years I had not seen,
was the same, exeept that it looked a deal smaller.
It wore the same shingles — I was sure of it; for
did not I know the roof where we boys, night after
night, hunted for the skin of a black cat, to be
taken on a dark night, to make a plaster for a poor
lame man? Lowry the tailor lived there when
boys were boys. In his day he was fond of the
gun. He always carried his powder loose in the
tail pocket of his coat. He usually had in his
mouth a short dudeen; but in an evil moment he
put the dudeen, lighted, in the pocket among the
powder. Mr. Lowry was an eccentric man.

At Briar’s Island I overhauled the Spray once
more and tried her seams, but found that even the
test of the sow’west rip had started nothing. Bad
weather and much head wind prevailing outside, I
was in no hurry to round Cape Sable. I made a
short excursion with some friends to St. Mary’s
Bay, an old cruising-ground, and back to the
island. Then I sailed, putting into Yarmouth the
following day on account of fog and head wind. I
spent some days pleasantly enough in Yarmouth,
took in some butter for the voyage, also a barrel of

22 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

potatoes, filled six barrels of water, and stowed all
under deck. At Yarmouth, too, I got my famous
tin clock, the only timepiece I carried on the whole
voyage. The price of it was a dollar and a half,
but on account of the face being smashed the mer-
chant let me have it for a dollar.

Captain Slocum’s chronometer.

CHAPTER III

Good-by to the American eoast— Off Sable Island in a fog—In
the open sea—The man in the moon takes an interest in the
voyage — The first fit of loneliness — The Spray encounters La
Vaguisa — A bottle of wine from the Spaniard — A bout of words
with the captain of the Java — The steamship Olympia spoken —
Arrival at the Azores.

NOW stowed all my goods securely, for the bois-

terous Atlantic was before me, and I sent the top-
mast down, knowing that the Spray would be the
wholesomer with it on deck. Then I gave the lan-
yards a pull and hitched them afresh, and saw that
the gammon was secure, also that the boat was
lashed, for even in summer one may meet with bad
weather in the crossing.

In fact, many weeks of bad weather had pre-
vailed. On July 1, however, after a rude gale, the
wind came out nor’west and clear, propitious for a
goodrun. On the following day, the head sea hav-
ing gone down, I sailed from Yarmouth, and let go
my last hold on America. The log of my first day
on the Atlantic in the Spray reads briefly: “9:30
A. M. sailed from Yarmouth. 4:30 P.M. passed Cape
Sable; distance, three cables from the land. The
sloop making eight knots. Fresh breeze N. W.”
Before the sun went down I was taking my supper

24 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

of strawberries and tea in smooth water under the
lee of the east-coast land, along which the Spray
was now leisurely skirting.

At noon on July 3 Ironbound Island was abeam.
The Spray was again at her best. A large schooner
came out of Liverpool, Nova Scotia, this morning,
steering eastward. 'The Spray put her hull down
astern in five hours. At 6:45 p.m. I was in close
under Chebucto Head light, near Halifax harbor. I
set my flag and squared away, taking my departure
from George’s Island before dark to sail east of
Sable Island. There are many beacon lights along
the coast. Sambro, the Rock of Lamentations,
earries a noble light, which, however, the liner
Atlantic, on the night of her terrible disaster, did
not see. I watched light after light sink astern as
I sailed into the unbounded sea, till Sambro, the
last of them all, was below the horizon. The Spray
was then alone, and sailing on, she held her course.
July 4, at 6 aA.m., I put in double reefs, and at 8:30
A. M. turned out all reefs. At 9:40». m. I raised the
sheen only of the light on the west end of Sable
Island, which may also be called the Island of
Tragedies. The fog, which till this moment had
held off, now lowered over the sea like a pall. I
was in a world of fog, shut off from the universe.
I did not see any more of the light. By the lead,
which I cast often, I found that a little after mid-
night I was passing the east point of the island,
and should soon be clear of dangers of land and
shoals. The wind was holding free, though it was
from the foggy point, south-southwest. It is said
that within a few years Sable Island has been

IN THE OPEN SEA 25

redueed from forty miles in length to twenty, and
that of three lighthouses built on it since 1880, two
have been washed away and the third will soon be

engulfed.

‘í Qood evening, sir?

On the evening of July 5 the Spray, after having
steered all day over a lumpy sea, took it into her
head to go without the helmsman's aid. I had
been steering southeast by south, but the wind
hauling forward a bit, she dropped into a smooth

26 SATLING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

lane, heading southeast, and making about eight
knots, her very best work. I crowded on sail to
cross the track of the liners without loss of time,
and to reach as soon as possible the friendly Gulf
Stream. The fog lifting before night, I was
afforded a look at the sun just as it was touching
the sea. I watched it go down and out of sight.
Then I turned my face eastward, and there, appa-
rently at the very end of the bowsprit, was the
smiling full moon rising out of the sea. Neptune
himself coming over the bows could not have star-
tled me more. “Good evening, sir,” I cried; “I’m
glad to see you” Many a long talk since then I
have had with the man in the moon; he had my
confidence on the voyage.

About midnight the fog shut down again denser
than ever before. One could almost “stand on it.”
It continued so for a number of days, the wind in-
creasing to a gale. The waves rose high, but I had
a good ship. Still, in the dismal fog I felt myself
drifting into loneliness, an insect on a straw in the
midst of the elements. I lashed the helm, and my
vessel held her course, and while she sailed I slept.

During these days a feeling of awe crept over
me. My memory worked with startling power. The
ominous, the insignificant, the great, the small, the
wonderful, the commonplace—all appeared before
my mental vision in magical succession. Pages of
my history were recalled which had been so long
forgotten that they seemed to belong to a previous
existence. I heard all the voices of the past laugh-
ing, crying, telling what I had heard them tell in
many corners of the earth.

THE FIRST BIT OF LONELINESS 2T

The loneliness of my state wore off when the
gale was high and I found much work to do.
When fine weather returned, then came the sense
of solitude, which I could not shake off. Iused my
voice often, at first giving some order about the af-
fairs of a ship, for I had been told that from disuse
I should lose my speech. At the meridian altitude
of the sun I called aloud, “ Eight bells,” after the
custom on a ship at sea. Again from my cabin I
cried to an imaginary man at the helm, “How does
she head, there?” and again, “Is she on her course?”
But getting no reply, I was reminded the more
palpably of my condition. My voice sounded hol-
low on the empty air, and I dropped the practice.
However, it was not long before the thought came
to me that when I was a lad I used to sing; why
not try that now, where it would disturb no one?
My musical talent had never bred envy in others,
but out on the Atlantic, to realize what it meant,
you should have heard me sing. You should have
seen the porpoises leap when I pitched my voice
for the waves and the sea and all that was in it.
Old turtles, with large eyes, poked their heads up
out of the sea as I sang “Johnny Boker,” and
“We’ll Pay Darby Doyl for his Boots,” and the
like. But the porpoises were, on the whole, vastly
more appreciative than the turtles; they jumped
a deal higher. One day when I was humming a
favorite chant, I think it was “Babylon *s a-Fallin’,”
& porpoise jumped higher than the bowsprit. Had
the Spray been going a little faster she would have
scooped him in. The sea-birds sailed around rather
shy.

28 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

July 10, eight days at sea, the Spray was twelve
hundred miles east of Cape Sable. One hundred
and fifty miles a day for so small a vessel must be
eonsidered good sailing. It was the greatest run
the Spray ever made before or since in so few days.
On the evening of July 14, in better humor than
ever before, all hands cried, “Sail ho!” The sail
was a barkantine, three points on the weather bow,
hull down. Then came the night. My ship was
sailing along now without attention to the helm.
The wind was south; she was heading east. Her
sails were trimmed like the sails of the nautilus.
They drew steadily all night. I went frequently
on deck, but found all well. A merry breeze kept

. on from the

woos south. Early

— SAM in the morn-

"Hess sing of. the
15th the

Spray was

close aboard

the stranger, which proved to
be La Vaguisa of Vigo, twenty-
` three days from Philadelphia,
bound for Vigo. A lookout
=< from his masthead had spied

————» — . the Spray the evening before.
COAT" The captain, when I eame near
* Hi also scat his cani? enough, threw a line to me and
sent a bottle of wine across

slung by the neck, and very good wine it was. He
also sent his card, which bore the name of Juan
Gantes. I think he was a good man, as Spaniards

WORDS WITH THE CAPTAIN OF THE “JAVA” 29

go. But when I asked him to report me “all well”
(the Spray passing him in a lively manner), he
hauled his shoulders much above his head; and
when his mate, who knew of my expedition, told
him that I was alone, he crossed himself and made
for his eabin. I did not see him again. By sun-
down he was as far astern as he had been ahead
the evening before.

There was now less and less monotony. On July
16 the wind was northwest and clear, the sea
smooth, and a large bark, hull down, came in sight
on the lee bow, and at 2:30 p.m. I spoke the
stranger. She was the bark Java of Glasgow, from
Peru for Queenstown for orders. Her old captain
was bearish, but I met a bear once in Alaska that
looked pleasanter. At least, the bear seemed
pleased to meet me, but this grizzly old man!
Well, I suppose my hail disturbed his siesta, and
my little sloop passing his great ship had some-
what the effect on him that a red rag has upon a
bull I had the advantage over heavy ships, by
long odds, in the light winds of this and the two
previous days. The wind was light; his ship was
heavy and foul,making poor headway, while the
Spray, with a great mainsail bellying even to light
winds, was just skipping along as nimbly as one
could wish. “ How long has it been calm about
here?” roared the captain of the Java, as I came
within hail of him. “Dunno, cap’n,” I shouted
back as loud as I could bawl. “I have n't been
here long.” At this the mate on the forecastle
wore a broad grin. “I left Cape Sable fourteen
days ago,” I added. (I was now well across toward

v ag
WT

Chart of the Spray’s course around the world — April 24, 1895, to J uly 3, 1898.

THE STEAMSHIP “OLYMPIA” SPOKEN 31

the Azores.) Mate," he roared to his chief officer
— “mate, come here and listen to the Yankee’s
yarn. Haul down the flag, mate, haul down the
flag!” In the best of humor, after all, the Java
surrendered to the Spray.

The aeute pain of solitude experienced at first
never returned. I had penetrated a mystery, and,
by the way, I had sailed through a fog. Ihad met
Neptune in his wrath, but he found that I had not
treated him with contempt, and so he suffered me
to go on and explore.

In the log for July 18 there is this entry: “Fine
weather, wind south-southwest. Porpoises gam-
boling all about. The S. S. Olympia passed at
11:30 à. m., long. W. 34° 50.”

“Tt lacks now three minutes of the half-hour,”
shouted the captain, as he gave me the longitude
and the time. I admired the businesslike air of the
Olympia; but I have the feeling still that the cap-
tain was just a little too precise in his reckoning.
That may be all well enough, however, where there
is plenty of sea-room. But over-confidence, I be-
lieve, was the cause of the disaster to the liner At-
lantic, and many more like her. The captain knew
too well where he was. There were no porpoises
at all skipping along with the Olympia! Porpoises
always prefer sailing-ships. "The captain was a
young man, I observed, and had before him, I
hope, a good record.

Land ho! On the morning of July 19 a mystie
dome like a mountain of silver stood alone in the
sea ahead. Although the land was completely
hidden by the white, glistening haze that shone in

32 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

the sun like polished silver, I felt quite sure that it
was Flores Island. At half-past four P. M. it was
abeam. The hazein the meantime had disappeared.
Flores is one hundred and seventy-four miles from
Fayal, and although it is a high island, it remained
many years undiscovered after the principal group
of the islands had been colonized.

Early on the morning of July 20 I saw Pieo
looming above the clouds on the starboard bow.
Lower lands burst forth as the sun burned away

The island of Pico.

the morning fog, and island after island came into
view. As I approached nearer, cultivated fields
appeared, “and oh, how green the corn!” Only
those who have seen the Azores from the deck of a
vessel realize the beauty of the mid-ocean picture.

At 4:30 P. M.I cast anchor at Fayal, exactly
eighteen days from Cape Sable. The American
consul, in a smart boat, came alongside before
the Spray reached the breakwater, and a young
naval officer, who feared for the safety of my ves-
sel, boarded, and offered his services as pilot. The
youngster, I have no good reason to doubt, could
have handled a man-of-war, but the Spray was too
small for the amount of uniform he wore. How-
ever, after fouling all the craft in port and sinking
a lighter, she was moored without much damage to

ARRIVAL AT THE AZORES 33

herself. This wonderful pilot expected a “ gratifica-
tion," I understood, but whether for the reason that
his government, and not I, would have to pay the
eost of raising the lighter, or beeause he did not
sink the Spray,l could never make out. But I
forgive him.

It was the season for fruit when I arrived at the
Azores, and there was soon more of all kinds of it
put on board than I knew what to do with, Isl-
anders are always the kindest people in the world,
and I met none anywhere kinder than the good
hearts of this place. The people of the Azores are
not a very rich community. The burden of taxes
is heavy, with scant privileges in return, the air
they breathe being about the only thing that is not
taxed. The mother-country does not even allow
them a port of entry for a foreign mail service. A
packet passing never so close with mails for Horta
must deliver them first in Lisbon, ostensibly to be
fumigated, but really for the tariff from the packet.
My own letters posted at Horta reached the United
States six days behind my letter from Gibraltar,
mailed thirteen days later.

The day after my arrival at Horta was the feast
of a great saint. Boats loaded with people came
from other islands to celebrate at Horta, the capi-
tal, or Jerusalem, of the Azores. The deck of the
Spray was crowded from morning till night with
men, women, and children. On the day after the
feast a kind-hearted native harnessed a team and.
drove me a day over the beautiful roads all about
Fayal, “because,” said he, in broken English,

* when I was in America and could n’t speak a
3

34 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

word of English, I found it hard till I met some one
who seemed to have time to listen to my story, and
I promised my good saint then that if ever a
stranger came to my eountry I would try to make
him happy.” Unfortunately, this gentleman brought
along an interpreter, that I might “learn more of
the country.” The fellow was nearly the death of
me, talking of ships and voyages, and of the boats
he had steered, the last thing in the world I wished
to hear. He had sailed out of New Bedford, so he
said, for “that Joe Wing they call ‘John’” My
friend and host found hardly a chance to edge in a
word. Before we parted my host dined me with
a cheer that would have gladdened the heart of a
prince, but he was quite alone in his house. “My
wife and children all rest there,” said he, pointing
to the churchyard across the way. “I moved to
this house from far off,” he added, “to be near the
spot, where I pray every morning.”

I remained four days at Fayal, and that was two
days more than I had intended to stay. It was the
kindness of the islanders and their touching sim-
plieity which detained me. A damsel, as innocent
as an angel, came alongside one day, and said she
would embark on the Spray if I would land her at
Lisbon. She could eook flying-fish, she thought,
but her forte was dressing bacalhao. Her brother
Antonio, who served as interpreter, hinted that,
anyhow, he would like to make the trip. Antonio’s
heart went out to one John Wilson, and he was
ready to sail for America by way of the two capes
to meet his friend. “Do you know John Wilson
of Boston?” he cried. “I knew a John Wilson,” I

o R T u

pee FORES e,
some ti, >”
O JONE 97 14898 we

Doron LA AO BS an JL, Z C

Btewy
SARA DA
G.
seg SA A

= oe
FORSE LATITUDES canary V

c IS A TL
RANTON o
SAR HESS tv ERP E7
BEAN is ef

ap. Dioscnan OF with. _

Chart of the Spray’s Atlantic voyages from Boston to Gibraltar,
thence to the Strait of Magellan, in 1895, and finally home-
ward bound from the Cape of Good Hope in 1898.

36 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

said, “but not of Boston.” “He had one daughter
and one son,” said Antonio, by way of identifying
his friend. If this reaches the right John Wilson,
I am told to say that ^ Antonio of Pico remembers
him."

CHAPTER IV

Squally weather in the Azores — High living — Delirious from cheese
and plums — The pilot of the Pinta — At Gibraltar — Compliments
exchanged with the British navy — A picnic on the Morocco
Shore.

SET sail from Horta early on July 24. The south-

west wind at the time was light, but squalls eame
up with the sun, and I was glad enough to get reefs
in my sails before I had gone a mile. I had hardly
set the mainsail, double-reefed, when a squall of wind
down the mountains struck the sloop with such
violence that I thought her mast would go. How-
ever, a quick helm brought her to the wind. As it
was, one of the weather lanyards was carried away
and the other was stranded. My tin basin, caught
up by the wind, went flying across a French school-
ship to leeward. It was more or less squally all
day, sailing along under high land; but rounding
elose under a bluff, I found an opportunity to mend
the lanyards broken in the squall. No sooner had
I lowered my sails when a four-oared boat shot out
from some gully in the rocks, with a customs officer
on board, who thought he had come upon a smug-
gler. I had some difficulty in making him compre-
hend the true case. However, one of his crew, a
sailorly chap, who understood how matters were,

while we palavered jumped on board and rove off
37

38 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

the new lanyards I had already prepared, and with
a friendly hand helped me “set up the rigging.”
This incident gave the turn in my favor. My story
was then clear to all. I have found this the way
of the world. Let one be without a friend, and see
what will happen !

Passing the island of Pico, after the rigging was
mended, the Spray stretched across to leeward of
the island of St. Michael’s, which she was up with
early on the morning of July 26, the wind blowing
hard. Later in the day she passed the Prince of
Monaco’s fine steam-yacht bound to Fayal, where,
on a previous voyage, the prince had slipped his
cables to “ escape a reception” which the padres of
the island wished to give him. Why he so dreaded
the “ovation” I could not make out. At Horta
they did not know. Since reaching the islands I
had lived most luxuriously on fresh bread, butter,
vegetables, and fruits of all kinds. Plums seemed
the most plentiful on the Spray, and these I ate
without stint. I had also a Pico white cheese that
General Manning, the American consul-general,
had given me, which I supposed was to be eaten,
and of this I partook with the plums. Alas! by
night-time I was doubled up with cramps. The
wind, which was already a smart breeze, was in-
creasing somewhat, with a heavy sky to the sow-
west. Reefs had been turned out, and I must turn
them in again somehow. Between cramps I got
the mainsail down, hauled out the earings as best I
eould, and tied away point by point, in the double
reef. There being sea-room, I should, in strict pru-
dence, have made all snug and gone down at oncé

DELIRIOUS FROM CHEESE AND PLUMS 39

to my cabin. I am a careful man at sea, but this
night, in the coming storm, I swayed up my sails,
which, reefed though they were, were still too much
in such heavy weather; and I saw to it that the
sheets were securely belayed. In a word, I should
have laid to, but did not. I gave her the double-
reefed mainsail and whole jib instead, and set her
on her course. Then I went below, and threw my-
self upon the cabin floor in great pain. How long
I lay there I could not tell, for I became delirious.
When I came to, as I thought, from my swoon, I
realized that the sloop was plunging into a heavy
sea, and looking out of the companionway, to my
amazement I saw a tall man at the helm. His
rigid hand, grasping the spokes of the wheel, held
them as in a vise. One may imagine my astonish-
ment. His rig was that of a foreign sailor, and the
large red cap he wore was cockbilled over his left
ear, and all was set off with shaggy black whiskers.
He would have been taken for a pirate 1n any part
of the world. While I gazed upon his threatening
aspect I forgot the storm, and wondered if he had
come to cut my throat. This he seemed to divine.
“ Senor," said he, doffing his eap, ^I have come to
do you no harm.” And a smile, the faintest in the
world, but still a smile, played on his face, which
seemed not unkind when he spoke. “I have come
to do you no harm. I have sailed free," he said,
“but was never worse than a contrabandista. lam
one of Columbus's crew,” he continued. “I am the
pilot of the Pinta come to aid you. Lie quiet,
señor captain,” he added, “and I will guide your
ship to-night. You have a calentura, but you will

40 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD |

be all right to-morrow.” I thought what a very
devil he was to carry sail. Again, as if he read my
mind, he exclaimed: * Yonder is the Pinta ahead;

we must overtake her. Give her sail; give her
sail! Vale, vale, muy vale!” Biting off a large quid
of black twist, he said: “ You did wrong, captain,
to mix cheese with plums. White cheese is never

THE PILOT OF THE “PINTA” 41

safe unless you know whence it comes. Quien sabe,
it may have been from leche de Capra and becoming

eaprieious a
“ Avast, there!” I cried. “I have no mind for
moralizing.”

I made shift to spread a mattress and lie on that
instead of the hard floor, my eyes all the while
fastened on my strange guest, who, remarking
again that I would have “only pains and calen-
tura,” chuckled as he chanted a wild song:

High are the waves, fierce, gleaming,
High is the tempest roar !

High the sea-bird screaming !
High the Azore!

I suppose I was now on the mend, for I was pee-
vish, and complained: “ I detest your jingle. Your
Azore should be at roost, and would have been
were it a respectable bird!” I begged he would tie
a rope-yarn on the rest of the song, if there was any
more of it. I was still in agony. Great seas were
boarding the Spray, but in my fevered brain I
thought they were boats falling on deck, that care-
less draymen were throwing from wagons on the
pier to which I imagined the Spray was now moored,
and without fenders to breast her off. “You ’ll
smash your boats!” I called out again and again,
as the seas crashed on the cabin over my head.
* You'll smash your boats, but you can’t hurt the
Spray. She is strong!” I cried.

I found, when my pains and calentura had gone,
that the deck, now as white as a shark’s tooth from
seas washing over it, had been swept of every-

42 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

thing movable. 'To my astonishment, I saw now
at broad day that the Spray was still heading as I
had left her, and was going like a race-horse.
Columbus himself could not have held her more
exactly on her course. The sloop had made ninety
miles in the night through a rough sea. I felt
grateful to the old pilot, but I marveled some that
he had not taken in the jib. The gale was moder-
ating, and by noon the sun was shining. A merid-
ian altitude and the distance on the patent log,
which I always kept towing, told me that she had
made a true course throughout the twenty-four
hours. I was getting much better now, but was
very weak, and did not turn out reefs that day or
the night following, although the wind fell light;
but I just put my wet clothes out in the sun when
it was shining, and lying down there myself, fell
asleep. Then who should visit me again but my
old friend of the night before, this time, of course,
in à dream. “You did well last night to take my
advice,” said he, “and if you would, I should like
to be with you often on the voyage, for the love
of adventure alone.” Finishing what he had to
say, he again doffed his cap and disappeared as
mysteriously as he came, returning, I suppose, to
the phantom Pinta. I awoke much refreshed, and
with the feeling that I had been in the presence of
a friend and a seaman of vast experience. I gath-
ered up my clothes, which by this time were dry,
then, by inspiration, I threw overboard all the
plums in the vessel.

July 28 was exceptionally fine. The wind from
the northwest was light and the air balmy. I over-

HIGH LIVING 43

hauled my wardrobe, and bent on a white shirt
against nearing some coasting-packet with genteel
folk on board. I also did some washing to get the
salt out of my clothes. After it all I was hungry,
so I made a fire and very cautiously stewed a dish
of pears and set them carefully aside till I had made
a pot of delicious coffee, for both of which I could
afford sugar and cream. But the crowning dish of all
was a fish-hash, and there was enough of it for two.
l was in good health again, and my appetite was
simply ravenous. While I was dining I had a large
onion over the double lamp stewing for a luncheon
later in the day. High living to-day!

In the afternoon the Spray came upon a large
turtle asleep on the sea. He awoke with my har-
poon through his neck, if he awoke atall I had
mueh diffieulty in landing him on deck, which I
finally accomplished by hooking the throat-halyards
to one of his flippers, for he was about as heavy as
my boat. I saw more turtles, and I rigged a bur-
ton ready with which to hoist them in; for I was
obliged to lower the mainsail whenever the halyards
were used for such purposes, and it was no small
matter to hoist the large sailagain. But the turtle-
steak was good. I found no fault with the cook,
and it was the rule of the voyage that the cook
found no fault with me. There was never a ship’s
crew so well agreed. The bill of fare that evening
was turtle-steak, tea and toast, fried potatoes, stewed
onions; with dessert of stewed pears and cream,

Sometime in the afternoon I passed a barrel-
buoy adrift, floating light on the water. It was
painted red, and rigged with a signal-staff about

44 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

six feet high. A sudden change in the weather
coming on, I got no more turtle or fish of any sort
before reaching port. July 31 a gale sprang up
suddenly from the north, with heavy seas, and I
shortened sail. The Spray made only fifty-one
miles on her course that day. August 1 the gale
continued, with heavy seas. Through the night
the sloop was reaching, under close-reefed main-
sail and bobbed jib. At 3 r. m. the jib was washed
off the bowsprit and blown to rags and ribbons.
I bent the “jumbo” on a stay at the night-heads.
As for the jib, let it go; I saved pieces of it, and,
after all, I was in want of pot-rags.

On August 3 the gale broke, and I saw many
signs of land. Bad weather having made itself
felt in the galley, I was minded to try my hand at
a loaf of bread, and so rigging a pot of fire on deck
by which to bake it, a loaf soon became an accom-
plished fact. One great feature about ship’s cook-
ing is that one’s appetite on the sea is always good
—a fact that I realized when I cooked for the
crew of fishermen in the before-mentioned boyhood
days. Dinner being over, I sat for hours reading
the life of Columbus, and as the day wore on I
watched the birds all flying in one direction, and
said, “‘ Land lies there.”

Early the next morning, August 4, I discovered
Spain. I saw fires on shore, and knew that the
country was inhabited. The Spray continued on
her course till well in with the land, which was
that about Trafalgar. Then keeping away a point,
she passed through the Strait of Gibraltar, where
she cast anchor at 3 P. M. of the same day, less

AT GIBRALTAR 45

than twenty-nine days from Cape Sable. At the
finish of this preliminary trip I found myself in
excellent health, not overworked or cramped, but
as well as ever in my life, though I was as thin as
a reef-point.

Two Italian barks, whieh had been elose along-

Coming to anchor at Gibraltar.

side at daylight, I saw long after I had anchored,
passing up the African side of the strait. The
Spray had sailed them both hull down before she
reached Tarifa. So far as I know, the Spray beat
everything going across the Atlantic except the
steamers.

All was well, but I had forgotten to bring a bill

46 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

of health from Horta, and so when the fierce old
port doctor came to inspect there was a row. That,
however, was the very thing needed. If you want
to get on well with a true Britisher you must first
have a deuce of a row with him. I knew that well
enough, and so I fired away, shot for shot, as best
I could. * Well, yes,” the doctor admitted at last,
* your erew are healthy enough, no doubt, but who
knows the diseases of your last port? " — à reason-
able enough remark. * We ought to put you in
the fort, sir!" he blustered; *but never mind.
Free pratique, sir! Shove off, cockswain!” And
that was the last I saw of the port doctor.

But on the following morning a steam-launch,
much longer than the Spray, came alongside,— or
as much of her as could get alongside,— with com-
pliments from the senior naval officer, Admiral
Bruce, saying there was a berth for the Spray at
the arsenal. This was around at the new mole.
I had anchored at the old mole, among the native
craft, where it was rough and uncomfortable. Of
course I was glad to shift, and did so as soon as
possible, thinking of the great company the Spray
would be in among battle-ships such as the Colling-
wood, Balfleur, and Cormorant, which were at that
time stationed there, and on board all of which I
was entertained, later, most royally.

**Put it thar!’ as the Americans say,” was the
salute I got from Admiral Bruce, when I called at
the admiralty to thank him for his courtesy of
the berth, and for the use of the steam-launch
which towed me into dock. “About the berth,
it is all right if it suits, and we'll tow you out

COMPLIMENTS EXCHANGED 47

when you are ready to go. But, say, what repairs
do you want? Ahoy the Hebe, can you spare your
sailmaker? The Spray wants a new jib. Con-
struction and repair, there! will you see to the
Spray? Say, old man, you must have knocked
the devil out of her coming over alone in twenty-

The Spray at anchor off Gibraltar.

nine days! But we ‘ll make it smooth for you
here!” Not even her Majesty’s ship the Colling-
wood was better looked after than the Spray at
Gibraltar.

Later in the day came the hail: “ Spray ahoy!
Mrs. Bruce would like to come on board and
shake hands with the Spray. Will it be con-
venient to-day?” “Very!” I joyfully shouted.

48 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

On the following day Sir F. Carrington, at the
time governor of Gibraltar, with other high officers
of the garrison, and all the commanders of the
battle-ships, came on board and signed their names
in the Spray's log-book. Again there was a hail,
“Spray ahoy !? “ Hello!” “Commander Reynolds’s
compliments. You are invited on board H. M. S.
Collingwood, ‘at home? at 4:30 p.m. Not later
than 5:30 p.m.” Ihad already hinted at the lim-
ited amount of my wardrobe, and that I could
never succeed as a dude. “ You are expected, sir,
in a stovepipe hat and a claw-hammer coat!”
“Then I can’t come.” “Dash it! come in what
you have on; that is what we mean.” “ Aye, aye,
sir!” The Collingwood’s cheer was good, and had
I worn a silk hat as high as the moon I could
not have had a better time or been made more
at home. An Englishman, even on his great
battle-ship, unbends when the stranger passes
his gangway, and when he says “at home? he
means it.

That one should like Gibraltar would go without
saying. How could one help loving so hospitable
a place? Vegetables twice a week and milk every
morning came from the palatial grounds of the
admiralty. “ Spray ahoy !? would hail the admiral.
* Spray ahoy!” “Hello!” “To-morrow is your
vegetable day, sir? “ Aye, aye, sir!”

I rambled much about the old city, and a gunner
piloted me through the galleries of the rock as far
as a stranger is permitted to go. There is no ex-
cavation in the world, for military purposes, at all
approaching these of Gibraltar in conception or
execution. Viewing the stupendous works, it be-

A PICNIC ON THE MOROCCO SHORE 49

eame hard to realize that one was within the Gib-
raltar of his little old Morse geography.

Before sailing I was invited on a pienie with the
governor, the officers of the garrison, and the com-
manders of the war-ships at the station; and a
royal affair it was. Torpedo-boat No. 91, going
twenty-two knots, carried our party to the Morocco
Shore and back. The day was perfect — too fine,
in fact, for comfort on shore, and so no one landed at
Morocco. No.91 trembled like an aspen-leaf as she
raced through the sea at top speed. Sublieutenant
Boucher, apparently a mere lad, was in command,
and handled his ship with the skill of an older sailor.
On the following day I lunched with General Car-
rington, the governor, at Line Wall House, which
was once the Franciscan convent. In this interest-
ing edifice are preserved relies of the fourteen sieges
which Gibraltar has seen. On the next day I supped
with the admiral at his residence, the palace, which
was once the convent of the Mercenaries. At each
place, and all about, I felt the friendly grasp of a
manly hand, that lent me vital strength to pass the
coming long days at sea. I must confess that the :
perfect discipline, order, and cheerfulness at Gib-
raltar were only a second wonder in the great
stronghold. The vast amount of business going
forward caused no more excitement than the quiet
sailing of a well-appointed ship in a smooth sea.
No one spoke above his natural voice, save a
boatswain’s mate now and then. The Hon. Horatio
J. Sprague, the venerable United States consul at
Gibraltar, honored the Spray with a visit on Sun-
day, August 24, and was much pleased to find that
our British cousins had been so kind to her.

CHAPTER V

Sailing from Gibraltar with the assistance of her Majesty's tug —
The Spray’s course changed from the Suez Canal to Cape Horn
— Chased by a Moorish pirate —.A comparison with Columbus—
The Canary Islands — The Cape Verde Islands — Sea life — Arrival
at Pernambueo — A bill against the Brazilian government — Pre-
paring for the stormy weather of the cape.

ONDAY, August 25, the Spray sailed from Gib-
raltar, well repaid for whatever deviation she

had made from a direct course to reach the place.
A tug belonging to her Majesty towed the sloop into
the steady breeze clear of the mount, where her sails
caught a volant wind, which carried her once more
to the Atlantic, where it rose rapidly to a furious
gale. My plan was, in going down this coast, to
haul offshore, well clear of the land, which here-
abouts is the home of pirates; but I had hardly
accomplished this when I perceived a felucca
making out of the nearest port, and finally follow-
ing in the wake of the Spray. Now, my course
to Gibraltar had been taken with a view to proceed
up the Mediterranean Sea, through the Suez Canal,
down the Red Sea, and east about, instead of a
western route, which I finally adopted. By officers
of vast experience in navigating these seas, I was
influenced to make the change. Longshore pirates
on both coasts being numerous, I could not afford

SAILING FROM GIBRALTAR 51

to make light of the advice. But here I was, after
all, evidently in the midst of pirates and thieves!
I ehanged my course; the felucea did the same,
both vessels sailing very fast, but the distance
growing less and less between us. The Spray
was doing nobly; she was even more than at her
best; but, in spite of all I could do, she would
broach now and then. She was carrying too much
sall for safety. I must reef or be dismasted and
lose all, pirate or no pirate. I must reef, even if I
had to grapple with him for my life.

I was not long in reefing the mainsail and sweat-
ing it up — probably not more than fifteen min-
utes; but the felucca had in the meantime so
shortened the distance between us that I now saw
the tuft of hair on the heads of the erew,— by which,
it is said, Mohammed will pull the villains up into
heaven,— and they were coming on like the wind.
From what I could clearly make out now, I felt
.them to be the sons of generations of pirates, and I
saw by their movements that they were now pre-
paring to strike a blow. The exultation on their
faces, however, was changed in an instant to a look
of fear and rage. Their craft, with too much sail
on, broached to on the crest of a great wave.
This one great sea changed the aspect of affairs
suddenly as the flash of a gun. Three minutes
later the same wave overtook the Spray and shook
her in every timber. At the same moment the
sheet-strop parted, and away went the main-boom,
broken short at the rigging. Impulsively I sprang
to the jib-halyards and down-haul, and instantly
downed the jib. The head-sail being off, and the

52 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

helm put hard down, the sloop came in the wind
with a bound. While shivering there, but a mo-
ment though it was, I got the mainsail down and se-
eured inboard, broken boom and all. How I got the
boom in before the sail was torn I hardly know;
but not a stitch of it was broken. The mainsail
being secured, I hoisted away the jib, and, without
looking round, stepped quickly to the eabin and
snatehed down my loaded rifle and cartridges at
hand; for I made mental calculations that the
pirate would by this time have recovered his course
and be elose aboard, and that when I saw him it
would be better for me to be looking at him along
the barrel of a gun. The piece was at my shoulder
when I peered into the mist, but there was no
pirate within a mile. The wave and squall that
earried away my boom dismasted the felucca out-
right. I perceived his thieving erew, some dozen
or more of them, struggling to recover their rigging
from the sea. Allah blacken their faces !

I sailed comfortably on under the jib and fore-
staysail, which I now set. I fished the boom and
furled the sail snug for the night; then hauled
the sloop's head two points offshore to allow for
the set of current and heavy rollers toward the
jand. This gave me the wind three points on the
starboard quarter and a steady pull in the headsails.
By the time I had things in this order it was dark,
and a flying-fish had already fallen on deck. I
took him below for my supper, but found myself too
tired to cook, or even to eat a thing already pre-
pared. Ido not remember to have been more tired
before or since in all my life than I was at the fin-

CHASED BY A MOORISH PIRATE 53

ish of that day. Too fatigued to sleep, I rolled about
with the motion of the vessel till near midnight,
when I made shift to dress my fish and prepare a
dish of tea. I fully realized now, if I had not þe-
fore, that the voyage ahead would call for exertions
ardent and lasting. On August 27 nothing could
be seen of the Moor, or his country either, except

A 1 | ñ

~ s y AAN A
SS YS VA Nd

Š SS = FN

NE TIE

^" SS CR |
ELA SR D i

two peaks, away in the east through the clear at-
mosphere of morning. Soon after the sun rose
even these were obscured by haze, much to my
satisfaction.

The wind, for a few days following my escape
from the pirates, blew a steady but moderate gale,
and the sea, though agitated into long rollers, was
not uneomfortably rough or dangerous, and while
sitting in my cabin I could hardly realize that any

54 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

sea was running at all, so easy was the long, swing-
ing motion of the sloop over the waves. All dis-
traeting uneasiness and excitement being now over,
I was once more alone with myself in the realiza-
tion that I was on the mighty sea and in the hands
of the elements. But I was happy, and was be-
coming more and more interested in the voyage.

Columbus, in the Santa Maria, sailing these seas
more than four hundred years before, was not so
happy as I, nor so sure of success in what he had
undertaken. His first troubles at sea had already
begun. His crew had managed, by foul play or
otherwise, to break the ship's rudder while running
before probably just such a gale as the Spray had
passed through; and there was dissension on the
Santa Maria, something that was unknown on the
Spray. i

After three days of squalls and shifting winds I
threw myself down to rest and sleep, while, with
helm lashed, the sloop sailed steadily on her course.

September 1, in the early morning, land-clouds
rising ahead told of the Canary Islands not far
away. A change in the weather came next day:
storm-clouds stretched their arms across the sky;
from the east, to all appearances, might come a
fierce harmattan, or from the south might come the
fierce hurricane. Every point of the compass
threatened a wild storm. My attention was turned
to reefing sails, and no time was to be lost over it,
either, for the sea in a moment was confusion
itself, and I was glad to head the sloop three points
or more away from her true course that she might
ride safely over the waves. I was now scudding

THE CANARY ISLANDS 55

her for the channel between Africa and the island
of Fuerteventura, the easternmost of the Canary
Islands, for which I was on the lookout. At2 P.M.,
the weather becoming suddenly fine, the island
stood in view, already abeam to starboard, and
not more than seven miles off. Fuerteventura
is twenty-seven hundred feet high, and in fine
weather is visible many leagues away.

The wind freshened in the night, and the Spray
had a fine run through the channel. By daylight,
September 3, she was twenty-five miles clear of all
the islands, when a calm ensued, which was the
precursor of another gale of wind that soon came
on, bringing with it dust from the African shore.
.It howled dismally while it lasted, and though it
was not the season of the harmattan, the sea in the
course of an hour was discolored with a reddish-
brown dust. The air remained thick with flying
dust all the afternoon, but the wind, veering north-
west at night, swept it back to land, and afforded
the Spray once more a clear sky. Her mast now
bent under a strong, steady pressure, and her belly-
ing sail swept the sea as she rolled scuppers under,
courtesying to the waves. These rolling waves
thrilled me as they tossed my ship, passing quickly
under her keel. This was grand sailing.

September 4, the wind, still fresh, blew from the
north-northeast, and the sea surged along with the
sloop. About noon a steamship, a bullock-droger,
from the river Plate hove in sight, steering north-
east, and making bad weather of it. I signaled her,
but got no answer. She was plunging into the
head sea and rolling in a most astonishing manner,

56 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

and from the way she yawed one might have said
that a wild steer was at the helm.

On the morning of September 6 I found three
flying-fish on deck, and a fourth one down the
fore-scuttle as close as possible to the frying-pan.
It was the best haul yet, and afforded me a sump-
tuous breakfast and dinner.

The Spray had now settled down to the trade-
winds and to the business of her voyage. Later
in the day another droger hove in sight, rolling
as badly as her predecessor. I threw out no
flag to this one, but got the worst of it for pass-
ing under her lee. She was, indeed, a stale one!
And the poor cattle, how they bellowed! The
time was when ships passing one another at sea
backed their topsails and had a “gam,” and on
parting fired guns; but those good old days have
gone. People have hardly time nowadays to speak
even on the broad ocean, where news is news, and
as for a salute of guns, they cannot afford the
powder. There are no poetry-enshrined freighters
on the sea now; it is a prosy life when we have no
time to bid one another good morning.

My ship, running now in the full swing of the
trades, left me days to myself for rest and recu-
peration. I employed the time in reading and
writing, or in whatever I found to do about the
rigging and the sails to keep them all in order.
The cooking was always done quickly, and was a
small matter, as the bill of fare consisted mostly of
flying-fish, hot biscuits and butter, potatoes, coffee
and eream — dishes readily prepared.

On September 10 the Spray passed the island of

THE CAPE VERDE ISLANDS 57

St. Antonio, the northwesternmost of the Cape
Verdes, close aboard. The landfall was wonder-
fully true, considering that no observations for
longitude had been made. The wind, northeast,
as the sloop drew by the island, was very squally,
but I reefed her sails snug, and steered broad from
the highland of blustering St. Antonio. Then
leaving the Cape Verde Islands out of sight astern,
] found myself once more sailing a lonely sea and
in a solitude supreme all around. When I slept
I dreamed that I was alone. This feeling never
left me; but, sleeping or waking, I seemed always
to know the position of the sloop, and I saw my
vessel moving across the chart, which became a
picture before me.

One night while I sat in the cabin under this
spell, the profound stillness all about was broken
by human voices alongside! I sprang instantly
to the deck, startled beyond my power to tell.
Passing close under lee, like an apparition, was
a white bark under full sail. The sailors on board
of her were hauling on ropes to brace the yards,
which just cleared the sloop’s mast as she swept
by. No one hailed from the white-winged flier,
but I heard some one on board say that he saw
lights on the sloop, and that he made her out
to be a fisherman. I sat long on the starlit deck
that night, thinking of ships, and watching the
constellations on their voyage.

On the following day, September 13, a large four-
masted ship passed some distance to windward,
heading north.

The sloop was now rapidly drawing toward the

58 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

region of doldrums, and the force of the trade-
winds was lessening. I could see by the ripples
that a counter-current had set in. This I esti-
mated to be about sixteen miles a day. In the
heart of the counter-stream the rate was more than
that setting eastward.

September 14 a lofty three-masted ship, heading
north, was seen from the masthead. Neither this
ship nor the one seen yesterday was within signal
distance, yet it was good even to see them. On
the following day heavy rain-clouds rose in the
south, obscuring the sun; this was ominous of
doldrums. On the 16th the Spray entered this
gloomy region, to battle with squalls and to be
harassed by fitful calms; for this is the state of the
elements between the northeast and the southeast
trades, where each wind, struggling in turn for
mastery, expends its force whirling about in all
directions. Making this still more trying to one’s
nerve and patience, the sea was tossed into con-
fused cross-lumps and fretted by eddying currents.
As if something more were needed to complete a
sailor’s discomfort in this state, the rain poured
down in torrents day and night. The Spray strug-
gled and tossed for ten days, making only three
hundred miles on her course in all that time. I
did n’t say anything!

On September 23 the fine schooner Nantasket
of Boston, from Bear River, for the river Plate,
lumber-laden, and just through the doldrums, came
up with the Spray, and her captain passing a few
words, she sailed on. Being much fouled on the
bottom by shell-fish, she drew along with her fishes

SEA LIFE 59

which had been following the Spray, which was
less provided with that sort of food. Fishes will
always follow a foul ship. A barnacle-grown log
adrift has the same attraction for deep-sea fishes.
One of this little sehool of deserters was a dolphin
that had followed the Spray about a thousand
miles, and had been content to eat scraps of food
thrown overboard from my table; for, having been
wounded, it could not dart through the sea to prey
on other fishes. I had become accustomed to see-
ing the dolphin, whieh I knew by its scars, and
missed it whenever it took occasional excursions
away from the sloop. One day, after it had been
off some hours, it returned in company with three
yellowtails, a sort of cousin to the dolphin. This
little school kept together, except when in danger
and when foraging about the sea. Their lives
were often threatened by hungry sharks that came
round the vessel, and more than once they had
narrow escapes. Their mode of escape interested
me greatly, and I passed hours watching them.
They would dart away, each in a different direc-
tion, so that the wolf of the sea, the shark, pursu-
ing one, would be led away from the others; then
after a while they would all return and rendezvous
under one side or the other of the sloop. Twice
their pursuers were diverted by a tin pan, which I
towed astern of the sloop, and which was mistaken
for a bright fish; and while turning, in the peculiar
way that sharks have when about to devour their
prey, I shot them through the head.

Their precarious life seemed to concern the
yellowtails very little, if at all. Al living beings,

60 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

without doubt, are afraid of death. Neverthe-
less, some of the species I saw huddle together as
though they knew they were created for the larger
fishes, and wished to give the least possible trouble
to their captors. I have seen, on the other hand,
whales swimming in a circle around a school of
herrings, and with mighty exertion “bunching”
them together in a whirlpool set in motion by their
flukes, and when the small fry were all whirled
nicely together, one or the other of the leviathans,
lunging through the center with open jaws, take in
a boat-load or so at a single mouthful. Off the
Cape of Good Hope I saw schools of sardines ot
other small fish being treated in this way by great
numbers of cavally-fish. There was not the slightest
chance of escape for the sardines, while the eavally
circled round and round, feeding from the edge of
the mass. It was interesting to note how rapidly
the small fry disappeared; and though it was re-
peated before my eyes over and over, I could hardly
perceive the capture of a single sardine, so dexter-
ously was it done.

Along the equatorial limit of the southeast trade-
winds the air was heavily charged with electricity,
and there was much thunder and lightning. It was
hereabout I remembered that, a few years before,
the American ship Alert was destroyed by lightning.
Her people, by wonderful good fortune, were res-
cued on the same day and brought to Pernambuco,
where I then met them.

On September 25, in the latitude of 5° N., longi-
tude 26° 30’ W., I spoke the ship North Star of
London. The great ship was out forty-eight days

ARRIVAL AT PERNAMBUCO 61

from Norfolk, Virginia, and was bound for Rio,
where we met again about two months later. The
Spray was now thirty days from Gibraltar.

The Spray's next companion of the voyage was
a swordfish, that swam alongside, showing its tall
fin out of the water, till I made a stir for my har-
poon, when it hauled its black flag down and dis-
appeared. September 30, at half-past eleven in the
morning, the Spray crossed the equator in longitude
29° 30' W. At noon she was two miles south of
the line. The southeast trade-winds, met, rather
light, in about 4? N., gave her sails now a stiff full
sending her handsomely over the sea toward the
coast of Brazil, where on October 5, just north of
Olinda Point, without further incident, she made
the land, easting anchor in Pernambuco harbor
about noon: forty days from Gibraltar, and all
well on board. Did I tire of the voyage in all
that time? Nota bitofit! I was never in better
trim in all my life, and was eager for the more
perilous experience of rounding the Horn.

It was not at all strange in a life common to
sailors that, having already crossed the Atlantic
twice and being now half-way from Boston to the
Horn, I should find myself still among friends. My
determination to sail westward from Gibraltar not
only enabled me to escape the pirates of the Red
Sea, but, in bringing me to Pernambuco, landed
me on familiar shores. I had made many voyages
to this and other ports in Brazil. In 1893 I was
employed as master to take the famous Ericsson
ship Destroyer from New York to Brazil to go
against the rebel Mello and his party. The De-

62 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

stroyer, by the way, carried a submarine cannon of
enormous length.

In the same expedition went the Mictheroy, the
ship purchased by the United States govern-
ment during the Spanish war and renamed the
Buffalo. The Destroyer was in many ways the
better ship of the two, but the Brazilians in their
curious war sank her themselves at Bahia. With
her sank my hope of recovering wages due me;
still, I could but try to recover, for to me it meant
a great deal. But now within two years the whirli-
gig of time had brought the Mello party into power,
and although it was the legal government which
had employed me, the so-called “rebels” felt under
less obligation to me than I could have wished.

During these visits to Brazil I had made the
acquaintance of Dr. Perera, owner and editor of
* El Commercio Jornal,” and soon after the Spray
was safely moored in Upper Topsail Reach, the
doctor, who is a very enthusiastic yachtsman, came
to pay me a visit and to carry me up the waterway
of the lagoon to his country residence. The ap-
proach to his mansion by the waterside was guarded
by his armada, a fleet of boats including a Chinese
sampan, a Norwegian pram, and a Cape Ann dory,
the last of which he obtained from the Destroyer.
The doctor dined me often on good Brazilian fare,
that I might, as he said, “salle gordo” for the
voyage; but he found that even on the best I
fattened slowly.

Fruits and vegetables and all other provisions
necessary for the voyage having been taken in, on
the 23d of October I unmoored and made ready

A BILL AGAINST THE BRAZILIAN GOVERNMENT 63

for sea. Here I encountered one of the unforgiving
Mello faction in the person of the collector of cus-
toms, who charged the Spray tonnage dues when
she cleared, notwithstanding that she sailed with a
yacht license and should have been exempt from
port charges. Our consul reminded the collector
of this and of the fact—without much diplomacy, I
thought—that it was I who brought the Destroyer
to Brazil. “Oh, yes,” said the bland collector;
“we remember it very well,” for it was now in a
small way his turn.

Mr. Lungrin, a merchant, to help me out of the
trifling difficulty, offered to freight the Spray with
a cargo of gunpowder for Bahia, which would have
put me in funds; and when the insurance com-
panies refused to take the risk on cargo shipped on
a vessel manned by a crew of only one, he offered
to ship it without insurance, taking all the risk
himself. This was perhaps paying me a greater
compliment than I deserved. The reason why I
did not accept the business was that in so doing I
found that I should vitiate my yacht license and
run into more expense for harbor dues around the
world than the freight would amount to. Instead
of all this, another old merchant friend came to my
assistance, advancing the cash direct.

While at Pernambuco I shortened the boom,
which had been broken when off the coast of Mo-
rocco, by removing the broken piece, which took
about four feet off the inboard end; I also refitted
the jaws. On October 24, 1895, a fine day even as
days go in Brazil, the Spray sailed, having had
abundant good cheer. Making about one hundred

64 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

miles à day along the coast, I arrived at Rio de
Janeiro November 5, without any event worth
mentioning, and about noon cast anchor near
Villaganon, to await the offieial port visit. On the
following day I bestirred myself to meet the highest
lord of the admiralty and the ministers, to inquire
eoncerning the matter of wages due me from the
beloved Destroyer. The high official I met said:
“Captain, so far as we are concerned, you may
have the ship, and if you care to accept her we
will send an officer to show you where she is.” I
knew well enough where she was at that moment.
The top of her smoke-stack being awash in Bahia,
it was more than likely that she rested on the
bottom there. I thanked the kind officer, but de-
clined his offer.

The Spray, with a number of old shipmasters on
board, sailed about the harbor of Rio the day be-
fore she put to sea. As I had decided to give the
Spray a yawl rig for the tempestuous waters of
Patagonia, I here placed on the stern a semicircular
brace to support a jigger mast. These old captains
inspected the Spray’s rigging, and each one con-
tributed something to her outfit. Captain Jones,
who had acted as my interpreter at Rio, gave her
an anchor, and one of the steamers gave her a
cable to match it. She never dragged Jones's
anchor once on the voyage, and the cable not only
stood the strain on a lee shore, but when towed off
Cape Horn helped break combing seas astern that
threatened to board her.

CHAPTER VI

Departure from Rio de Janeiro — The Spray ashore on the sands
of Uruguay— A narrow escape from shipwreck — The boy who
found a sloop— The Spray floated but somewhat damaged —
Courtesies from the British consul at Maldonado — A warm
greeting at Montevideo — An exeursion to Buenos Aires — Short-
ening the mast and bowsprit.

N November 28 the Spray sailed from Rio de
Janeiro, and first of all ran into a gale of wind,
which tore upthings generally along the coast, doing
eonsiderable damage to shipping. It was well for
her, perhaps, that she was clear of the land. Coasting
along on this part of the voyage, I observed that
while some of the small vessels I fell in with were
able to outsail the Spray by day, they fell astern of
her by night. To the Spray day and night were
the same; to the others clearly there was a differ-
ence. On one of the very fine days experienced
after leaving Rio, the steamship South Wales spoke
the Spray and unsolicited gave the longitude by
chronometer as 489 W., “as near as I can make
it,” the captain said. The Spray, with her tin
clock, had exactly the same reckoning. I was
feeling at ease in my primitive method of naviga-
tion, but it startled me not a little to find my posi-
tion by account verified by the ship’s chronometer.

On December 5 a barkantine hove in sight, and
Lj 65

66 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

for several days the two vessels sailed along the
coast together. Right here a current was experi-
enced setting north, making it necessary to hug
the shore, with whieh the Spray became rather fa-
miliar. Here I confess a weakness: I hugged the
shore entirely too close. In a word, at daybreak
on the morning of December 11 the Spray ran hard
and fast on the beach. This was annoying; but I
soon found that the sloop was in no great danger.
The false appearance of the sand-hills under a
bright moon had deceived me, and I lamented now
that I had trusted to appearances at all. The sea,
though moderately smooth, still carried a swell
which broke with some force on the shore. I man-
aged to launch my small dory from the deck, and
ran out a kedge-anchor and warp; but it was too
late to kedge the sloop off, for the tide was falling
and she had already sewed a foot. Then I went
about “laying out” the larger anchor, which was
no easy matter, for my only life-boat, the frail
dory, when the anchor and cable were in it, was
swamped at once in the surf, the load being too
great for her. Then I cut the cable and made two
loads of it instead of one. The anchor, with forty
fathoms bent and already buoyed, I now took and
succeeded in getting through the surf; but my
dory was leaking fast, and by the time I had rowed
far enough to drop the anchor she was full to the
gunwale and sinking. There was not a moment to
spare, and I saw clearly that if I failed now all
might be lost. I sprang from the oars to my feet,
and lifting the anchor above my head, threw it
ciear just as she was turning over. I grasped her

A NARROW ESCAPE FROM SHIPWRECK 67

gunwale and held on as she turned bottom up, for
I suddenly remembered that I could not swim.
Then I tried to right her, but with too much eager-
ness, for she rolled clean over, and left me as before,
clinging to her gunwale, while my body was still in
the water. Giving a moment to cool reflection, I
found that although the wind was blowing mod-
erately toward the land, the current was carrying
me to sea, and that something would have to be
done. Three ts

times I. baa ce NW à

been under wa- NS —
ter,in trying to RS a
right the dory, X -——

and I was just &
saying, "Now I ==
lay me? when >= — ~ —
I was seized ss. _ 2 no
by a determina-
tion to try yet
once more, so that no one of the prophets of
evil I had left behind me could say, ^I told you
so" Whatever the danger may have been, much
or little, I can truly say that the moment was the
most serene of my life.

After righting the dory for the fourth time,I
finally succeeded by the utmost care in keeping her
upright while I hauled myself into her and with
one of the oars, which I had recovered, paddled to
the shore, somewhat the worse for wear and pretty
full of salt water. The position of my vessel, now
high and dry, gave me anxiety. To get her afloat
again was all I thought of or cared for. I had little

“I suddenly remembered that I could not swim.”

68 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

difficulty in carrying the second part of my cable
out and seeuring it to the first, whieh I had taken
the preeaution to buoy before I put it into the boat.
To bring the end back to the sloop was a smaller
matter still and I believe I chuckled above my
sorrows when I found that in all the haphazard
my judgment or my good genius had faithfully
stood by me. The cable reached from the anchor
in deep water to the sloop's windlass by just enough
to secure a turn and no more. The anchor had
been dropped at the right distance from the vessel.
To heave all taut now and wait for the coming tide
was all I could do.

I had already done enough work to tire a stouter .
man, and was only too glad to throw myself on the
sand above the tide and rest; for the sun was
already up, and pouring a generous warmth over
theland. While my state could have been worse,
I was on the wild coast of a foreign country, and
not entirely secure in my property, as I soon found
out. Ihad not been long on the shore when I heard
the patter, patter of a horse's feet approaching along
the hard beach, which ceased as it eame abreast of
the sand-ridge where I lay sheltered from the
wind. Looking up cautiously, I saw mounted on a
nag probably the most astonished boy on the whole
coast. He had found a sloop! “It must be mine,”
he thought, “for am I not the first to see it on the
beach?” Sure enough, there it was all high and
dry and painted white. He trotted his horse
around it, and finding no owner, hitched the nag
to the sloop's bobstay and hauled as though he
would take her home; but of course she was too

THE BOY WHO FOUND A SLOOP 69

heavy for one horse to move. With my skiff, how-
ever, it was different; this he hauled some distance,
and concealed behind a dune in a bunch of tall
grass. He had made up his mind, I dare say, to
bring more horses and drag his bigger prize away,
anyhow, and was starting off for the settlement a
mile or so away for the reinforcement when I
diseovered myself to him, at which he seemed
displeased and disappointed. * Buenos dias, mu-
chacho,” I said. He grunted a reply, and eyed me
keenly from head to foot. Then bursting into a vol-
ley of questions, — more than six Yankees could ask,
—he wanted to know, first, where my ship was from,
and how many days she had been coming. Then
he asked what I was doing here ashore so early in
the morning. “ Your questions are easily answered,”
I replied ; “my ship is from the moon, it has taken
her a month to come, and she is here for a cargo of
boys.” But the intimation of this enterprise, had
I not been on the alert, might have cost me dearly;
for while I spoke this child of the campo coiled his
lariat ready to throw, and instead of being himself
earried to the moon, he was apparently thinking
of towing me home by the neck, astern of his wild
cayuse, over the fields of Uruguay.

The exact spot where I was stranded was at the
Castillo Chicos, about seven miles south of the
dividing-line of Uruguay and Brazil, and of course
the natives there speak Spanish. To reconcile my
early visitor, I told him that I had on my ship
biscuits, and that I wished to trade them for butter
and milk. On hearing this a broad grin lighted up
his face, and showed that he was greatly interested,

'estiduns e[qnop v

THE “SPRAY” FLOATED 71

and that even in Uruguay a ship’s biscuit will cheer
the heart of a boy and make him your bosom friend.
The lad almost flew home, and returned quickly
with butter, milk, and eggs. I was, after all, in a
land of plenty. With the boy came others, old and
young, from neighboring ranches, among them a
German settler, who was of great assistance to me
in many ways.

A coast-guard from Fort Teresa, a few miles
away, also came, “to protect your property from
the natives of the plains,” he said. I took occasion
to tell him, however, that if he would look after
the people of his own village, I would take care of
those from the plains, pointing, as I spoke, to the
nondescript “merchant” who had already stolen
my revolver and several small articles from my
eabin, which by a bold front I had recovered. The
chap was not a native Uruguayan. Hero, as in
many other places that I visited, the natives
themselves were not the ones discreditable to the
country.

Early in the day a despatch came from the port
captain of Montevideo, commanding the coast-
guards to render the Spray every assistance. This,
however, was not necessary, for a guard was already
on the alert, and making all the ado that would be-
come the wreck of a steamer with a thousand emi-
grants aboard. The same messenger brought word
from the port captain that he would despatch a
steam-tug to tow the Spray to Montevideo. The offi-
cer was as good as his word; a powerful tug arrived
on the following day; but, to make a long story
short, with the help of the German and one soldier

72 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

and one Italian, called “ Angel of Milan,” I had
already floated the sloop and was sailing for port
with the boom off before a fair wind. The adven-
ture eost the Spray no small amount of pounding
on the hard sand; she lost her shoe and part of
her false keel, and received other damage, which,
however, was readily mended afterward in dock.

On the following day I anchored at Maldonado.
The British consul, his daughter, and another
young lady eame on board, bringing with them a
basket of fresh eggs, strawberries, bottles of milk,
and a great loaf of sweet bread. This was a good
landfall,and better cheer than I had found at Mal-
donado onee upon a time when I entered the port
with a stricken crew in my bark, the Aquidneck.

In the waters of Maldonado Bay a variety of
fishes abound, and fur-seals in their season haul
out on the island abreast the bay to breed. Cur-
rents on this coast are greatly affected by the pre-
vailing winds, and a tidal wave higher than that
ordinarily produced by the moon is sent up the
whole shore of Uruguay before a southwest gale,
or lowered by a northeaster, as may happen. One
of these waves having just receded before the
northeast wind which brought the Spray in left
the tide now at low ebb, with oyster-rocks laid
bare for some distance along the shore. Other
shellfish of good flavor were also plentiful, though
small in size. I gathered a mess of oysters and
mussels here, while a native with hook and line,
and with mussels for bait, fished from a point of
detached rocks for bream, landing several good,
sized ones.

A WARM GREETING AT MONTEVIDEO 73

The fisherman's nephew, a lad about seven years
old, deserves mention as the tallest blasphemer,
for a short boy, that I met on the voyage. He
ealled his old unele all the vile names under the
sun for not helping him across the gully. While
he swore roundly in all the moods and tenses of
the Spanish language, his uncle fished on, now and
then congratulating his hopeful nephew on his
accomplishment. At the end of his rich vocabu-
lary the urehin sauntered off into the fields, and
shortly returned with a bunch of flowers, and with
all smiles handed them to me with the innocence
of an angel. I remembered having seen the same
flower on the banks of the river farther up, some
years before. I asked the young pirate why he
had brought them to me. Said he, *I don't know;
I only wished to do so.” Whatever the influence
was that put so amiable a wish in this wild pampa
boy, it must be far-reaching, thought I, and potent,
seas over.

Shortly after, the Spray sailed for Montevideo,
where she arrived on the following day and was
greeted by steam-whistles till I felt embarrassed
and wished that I had arrived unobserved. The
voyage so far alone may have seemed to the Uru-
guayans a feat worthy of some recognition; but
there was so much of it yet ahead, and of such an
arduous nature, that any demonstration at this
point seemed, somehow, like boasting prematurely.

The Spray had barely come to anchor at Monte-
video when the agents of the Royal Mail Steam-
ship Company, Messrs. Humphreys & Co., sent
word that they would dock and repair her free of

74 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

expense and give me twenty pounds sterling,
whieh they did to the letter, and more besides.
The ealkers at Montevideo paid very eareful atten-
tion to the work of making the sloop tight. Car-
penters mended the keel and also the life-boat (the
dory) painting it till 1 hardly knew it from a
butterfly.

Christmas of 1895 found the Spray refitted even
to a wonderful makeshift stove which was contrived
from a large iron drum of some sort punched full
of holes to give it a draft; the pipe reached straight
up through the top of the forecastle. Now, this was
not a stove by mere courtesy. It was always hun-
gry, even for green wood; and in cold, wet days off
the coast of Tierra del Fuego it stood me in good
stead. Its one door swung on copper hinges, which
one of the yard apprentices, with laudable pride,
polished till the whole thing blushed like the brass
binnacle of a P. & O. steamer.

The Spray was now ready for sea. Instead of
proceeding at once on her voyage, however, she
made an excursion up the river, sailing December
29. An old friend of mine, Captain Howard of
Cape Cod and of River Plate fame, took the trip in
her to Buenos Aires, where she arrived early on
the following day, with a gale of wind and a cur-
rent so much in her favor that she outdid herself.
I was glad to have a sailor of Howard’s experience
on board to witness her performance of sailing
with no living being at the helm. Howard sat
near the binnacle and watched the compass while
the sloop held her course so steadily that one
would have declared that the card was nailed fast.

AN EXCURSION TO BUENOS AIRES 75

Not a quarter of a point did she deviate from her
eourse. My old friend had owned and sailed a
pilot-sloop on the river for many years, but this
feat took the wind out of his sails at last, and he
eried, *I'll be stranded on Chico Bank if ever I
saw the hke of it!? Perhaps he had never given
his sloop a chance to show what she could do.
The point I make for the Spray here, above all
other points, is that she sailed in shoal water and
in à strong current, with other diffieult and un-
usual conditions. Captain Howard took all this
into account.

In all the years away from his native home
Howard had not forgotten the art of making fish
chowders; and to prove this he brought along some
fine rockfish and prepared a mess fit for kings.
When the savory chowder was done, chocking
the pot securely between two boxes on the cabin
floor, so that it could not roll over, we helped our-
selves and swapped yarns over it while the Spray
made her own way through the darkness on the
river. Howard told me stories about the Fuegian
eannibals as she reeled along, and I told him about
the pilot of the Pinta steering my vessel through
the storm off the coast of the Azores, and that I
looked for him at the helm in a gale such as this.
I do not eharge Howard with superstition,— we
are none of us superstitious,— but when I spoke
about his returning to Montevideo on the Spray he
shook his head and took a steam-packet instead.

I had not been in Buenos Aires for a number of
years. The place where I had once landed from
packets, in a cart, was now built up with magnifi-

76 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

cent docks. Vast fortunes had been spent in re-
modeling the harbor; London bankers could tell you
that. The port captain, after assigning the Spray
a safe berth, with his compliments, sent me word
to eall on him for anything I might want while in
port, and I felt quite sure that his friendship was
sincere. The sloop was well cared for at Buenos
Aires; her dockage and tonnage dues were all free,
and the yachting fraternity of the city welcomed
her with a good will. In town I found things not
so greatly changed as about the docks, and I soon
felt myself more at home.

From Montevideo I had forwarded a letter from
Sir Edward Hairby to the owner of the “ Standard,”
Mr. Mulhall, and in reply to it was assured of a
warm welcome to the warmest heart, I think, out-
side of Ireland. Mr. Mulhall, with a prancing
team, came down to the docks as soon as the
Spray was berthed, and would have me go to his
house at once, where a room was waiting. And
it was New Year’s day, 1896. The course of the
Spray had been followed in the columns of the
“ Standard.”

Mr. Mulhall kindly drove me to see many im-
provements about the city, and we went in search
of some of the old landmarks. The man who sold
“lemonade” on the plaza when first I visited this
wonderful city I found selling lemonade still at
two cents a glass; he had made a fortune by it.
His stock in trade was a wash-tub and a neighbor-
ing hydrant, a moderate supply of brown sugar,
and about six lemons that floated on the sweetened
water. The water from time to time was renewed

AN EXCURSION TO BEUNOS AIRES 77

from the friendly pump, but the lemon “ went on
forever,” and all at two cents a glass.

But we looked in vain for the man who once sold
whisky and coffins in Buenos Aires; the march of
civilization had crushed him — memory only clung
to his name. Enterprising man that he was, I fain

ag SERÁ Oter
"d E ^uis.

e
<
e
NE # DUCK oc. CIE ESTAS EC eno

`
` QC CORI AE tanto Cose]

At the sign of the comet.

would have looked him up. I remember the tiers
of whisky-barrels, ranged on end, on one side of
the store, while on the other side, and divided by
a thin partition, were the coffins in the same order,
of all sizes and in great numbers. ' he unique ar-
rangement seemed in order, for as a eask was
emptied a coffin might be filled. Besides cheap
whisky and many other liquors, he sold “ cider,”
which he manufactured from damaged Malaga

78 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

raisins. Within the scope of his enterprise was
also the sale of mineral waters, not entirely blame-
less of the germs of disease. "This man surely ea-
tered to all the tastes, wants, and conditions of
his customers.

Farther along in the city, however, survived the
good man who wrote on the side of his store, where
thoughtful men might read and learn: “This
wicked world will be destroyed by a comet! The
owner of this store is therefore bound to sell out
at any price and avoid the catastrophe.” My friend
Mr. Muthall drove me round to view the fearful
comet with streaming tail pictured large on the
trembling merchant’s walls.

I unshipped the sloop’s mast at Buenos Aires
and shortened it by seven feet. I reduced the
length of the bowsprit by about five feet, and even
then I found it reaching far enough from home;
and more than once, wher on the end of it reefing
the jib, I regretted that I had not shortened it
another foot.

CHAPTER VII

Weighing anchor at Buenos Aires — An outburst of «motion at the
mouth of the Plate — Submerged by a great wave —- A stormy
entrance to the strait— Captain Samblich’s happy gift of a bag
of earpet-taeks — Off Cape Froward — Chased by Indians from
Fortescue Bay —A miss-shot for ‘‘ Black Pedro? — Taking in
supplies of wood and water at Three Island Cove — Animal life.

N January 26, 1896, the Spray, being refitted
and well provisioned in every way, sailed from
Buenos Aires. There was little wind at the start;
the surface of the great river was like a silver disk,
and I was glad of a tow from a harbor tug to clear
the port entrance. But a gale came up soon after,
and eaused an ugly sea, and instead of being all
Silver, as before, the river was now all mud. The
Plate is à treacherous place for storms. One sail-
ing there should always be on the alert for squalls.
I east anchor before dark in the best lee I could find
near the land, but was tossed miserably all night,
heartsore of ehoppy seas. On the following morn-
ing I got thesloop under way, and with reefed sails
worked her down the river against a head wind.
Standing in that night to the place where pilot
Howard joined me for the up-river sail, I took a
departure, shaping my course to clear Point Indio
on the one hand, and the English Bank on the

other.
79

HERI
Wis} f i

y Th Mihi)
YAN iy
I!

A great wave off the Patagonian coast.

SUBMERGED BY A GREAT WAVE 81

I had not for many years been south of these
regions. I will not say that I expected all fine
sailing on the course for Cape Horn direct, but
while I worked at the sails and rigging I thought
only of onward and forward. It was when I an-
ehored in the lonely places that a feeling of awe
crept over me. At the last anchorage on the mo-
notonous and muddy river, weak as it may seem,
I gave way to my feelings. I resolved then that I
would anchor no more north of the Strait of Ma-
gellan.

On the 28th of January the Spray was clear of
Point Indio, English Bank, and all the other dan-
gers of the River Plate. With a fair wind she
then bore away for the Strait of Magellan, under
all sail, pressing farther and farther toward the
wonderland of the South, till I forgot the blessings
of our milder North.

My ship passed in safety Bahia Blanca, also the
Gulf of St. Matias and the mighty Gulf of St.
George. Hoping that she might go clear of the
destructive tide-races, the dread of big craft or
little along this coast, I gave all the capes a berth
of about fifty miles, for these dangers extend many
miles from the land. But where the sloop avoided
one danger she encountered another. For, one
day, well off the Patagonian coast, while the sloop
was reaching under short sail, a tremendous wave,
the culmination, it seemed, of many waves, rolled
down upon her in a storm, roaring as it came. I
had only a moment to get all sail down and myself
up on the peak halliards, out of danger, when I

( saw the mighty crest towering masthead-high above
! 6

82 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

me. The mountain of water submerged my vessel.
She shook in every timber and reeled under the
weight of the sea, but rose quickly out of it, and
rode grandly over the rollers that followed. It
may have been a minute that from my hold in the
rigging I could see no part of the Spray's hull.
Perhaps it was even less time than that, but it
seemed a long while, for under great excitement
one lives fast, and in a few seconds one may think
a great deal of one's past life. Not only did the
past, with electric speed, flash before me, but I had
time while in my hazardous position for resolu-
tions for the future that would take a long time to
fulfil. The first one was, I remember, that if the
Spray came through this danger I would dedi-
eate my best energies to building a larger ship on
her lines, which I hope yet to do. Other promises,
less easily kept, I should have made under protest.
However, the incident, which filled me with fear,
was only one more test of the Spray’s seaworthi-
ness. It reassured me against rude Cape Horn.

From the time the great wave swept over the
Spray until she reached Cape Virgins nothing oc-
curred to move a pulse and set blood in motion.
On the contrary, the weather became fine and the
sea smooth and life tranquil. The phenomenon of
mirage frequently occurred. An albatross sitting
on the water one day loomed up like a large ship;
two fur-seals asleep on the surface of the sea ap-
peared like great whales, and a bank of haze I
could have sworn was high land. The kaleido-
scope then changed, and on the following day I
sailed in a world peopled by dwarfs.

A STORMY ENTRANCE TO THE STRAIT 83

On February 11 the Spray rounded Cape Virgins
and entered the Strait of Magellan. The scene
was again real and gloomy; the wind, northeast,
and blowing a gale, sent feather-white spume along
the coast; such a sea ran as would swamp an ill-
appointed ship. As the sloop neared the entrance

Entrance to the Strait of Magellan.

to the strait I observed that two great tide-races
made ahead, one very close to the point of the land
and one farther offshore. Between the two, in a
sort of channel, through combers, went the Spray
with close-reefed sails. But a rolling sea followed
her a long way in, and a fierce current swept
around the cape against her; but this she stemmed,
and was soon chirruping under the lee of Cape
Virgins and running every minute into smoother
water. However, long trailing kelp from sunken
rocks waved forebodingly under her keel, and the
wreck of a great steamship smashed on the beach
abreast gave a gloomy aspect to the scene.

I was not to be let off easy. The Virgins would
collect tribute even from the Spray passing their
promontory. Fitful rain-squalls from the north-
west followed the northeast gale. I reefed the

84 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

sloop's sails, and sitting in the cabin to rest my
eyes, I was so strongly impressed with what in all
nature I might expect that as I dozed the very air
I breathed seemed to warn me of danger. My
senses heard “ Spray ahoy!” shouted in warning.
I sprang to the deck, wondering who could be
there that knew the Spray so well as to call out her
name passing in the dark; for it was now the
blaekest of nights all around, except away in
the southwest, where the old familiar white arch,
the terror of Cape Horn, rapidly pushed up by
a southwest gale. I had only à moment to douse
sail and lash all solid when it struck like a shot
from a eannon, and for the first half-hour it was
something to be remembered by way of a gale.
For thirty hours it kept on blowing hard. The
sloop could earry no more than a three-reefed main-
sail and forestaysail; with these she held on stoutly
and was not blown out of the strait. In the height
of the squalls in this gale she doused all sail, and
this occurred often enough.

After this gale followed only a smart breeze, and
the Spray, passing through the narrows without
mishap, east anchor at Sandy Point on February
14, 1896.

Sandy Point (Punta Arenas) is a Chilean coal-
ing-station, and boasts about two thousand inhabi-
tants, of mixed nationality, but mostly Chileans.
What with sheep-farming, gold-mining, and hunt-
ing, the settlers in this dreary land seemed not the
worst offin the world. But the natives, Patagonian
and Fuegian, on the other hand, were as squalid
as contact with unscrupulous traders could make

7
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SZ
——
EEE

Nh *
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The course of the Spray through the Strait of Magellan.

P L
[E
`
2

fro ME

EVANGELISTAS
THE FIRST ATTEMPT TO CLEAR TIE HORY;

1895

ANCHORAGE;

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410 WMOTE Z

Fotos Swann y^ JTI

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APRIL & 14-08

> DIRECTION OF WIND)
&

86 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

them. A large percentage of the business there
was traffic in *fire-water? If there was a law
against selling the poisonous stuff to the natives,
it was not enforced. Fine specimens of the Pata-
gonian race, looking smart in the morning when
they came into town, had repented before night of
ever having seen a white man, so beastly drunk
were they, to say nothing about the peltry of which
they had been robbed.

The port at that time was free, but a custom-
house was in course of construction, and when it
is finished, port and tariff dues are to be collected.
A soldier police guarded the place, and a sort of
vigilante force besides took down its guns now
and then; but as a general thing, to my mind,
whenever an execution was made they killed the
wrong man. Just previous to my arrival the gov-
ernor, himself of a jovial turn of mind, had sent a
party of young bloods to foray a Fuegian settle-
ment and wipe out what they could of it on ac-
count of the recent massacre of a schooner’s crew
somewhere else. Altogether the place was quite
newsy and supported two papers — dailies, I think.
The port captain, a Chilean naval officer, advised
me to ship hands to fight Indians in the strait
farther west, and spoke of my stopping until a
gunboat should be going through, which would
give me a tow. After canvassing the place, how-
ever, I found only one man willing to embark, and
he on condition that I should ship another “mon
and a doog.” But as no one else was willing to
come along, and as I drew the line at dogs, I said
no more about the matter, but simply loaded my

A GIFT OF A BAG OF CARPET-TACKS 87

guns. Atthis point in my dilemma Captain Pedro
Samblich, a good Austrian of large experience,
coming along, gave me a bag of carpet-tacks, worth
more than all the fighting men and dogs of Tierra
del Fuego. I protested that I had no use for car-
pet-tacks on board. Sam-
blich smiled at my want
of experience, and main-
tained stoutly that I would
have use for them. * You
must use them with dis-
cretion,” he said; “that is
to say, don’t step on them
yourself.” With this re-
mote hint about the use of
the tacks I got on all right,
and saw the way to main-
tain clear decks at night
without the care of watch-
ing.

Samblich was greatly in-
terested in my voyage, and
after giving me the tacks z
he put on board bags of
biscuits and a large quan- g
tity of smoked venison. ~
He declared that my bread, I Pe ui aor alors
which was ordinary sea- ™ i M dao
biscuits and easily broken,
was not nutritious as his, which was so hard that I
eould break it only with a stout blow from a maul.
Then he gave me, from his own sloop, a compass
which was certainly better than mine, and offered to

88 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

unbend her mainsail for me if I would aecept it.
Last of all, this large-hearted man brought out a
bottle of Fuegian gold-dust from a place where it
had been cached and begged me to help myself
from it, for use farther along on the voyage. But
I felt sure of success without
this draft on a friend, and I
was right. Samblich’s tacks,
as it turned out, were of more
value than gold.

The port captain finding
that I was resolved to go, even
alone, since there was no help
for it, set up no further objec- `
tions, but advised me, in case
the savages tried to surround
me with their canoes, to shoot
| straight, and begin to do it in

^ time, but to avoid killing them

if possible, whieh I heartily
agreed to do. With these
simple injunctions the officer
gave me my port clearance free
of charge, and I sailed on the
same day, February 19, 1896. It was not without
thoughts of strange and stirring adventure beyond
all I had yet encountered that I now sailed into the
country and very core of the savage Fuegians.

A fair wind from Sandy Point brought me on
the first day to St. Nicholas Bay, where, so I was
told, I might expect to meet savages; but seeing
no signs of life, I came to anchor in eight fathoms
of water, where I lay all night under a high moun-

asd he
ESE
et Uy, W
DM; pes
5

A Fuegian Girl.

OFF CAPE FROWARD 89

tain. Here I had my first experience with the
terrific squalls, called williwaws, which extended
from this point on through the strait to the
Pacific. They were compressed gales of wind that
Boreas handed down over the hills in chunks. A
full-blown williwaw will throw a ship, even with-
out sail on, over on her beam ends; but, like other
gales, they cease now and then, if only for a short
time.

February 20 was my birthday, and I found my-
self alone, with hardly so much as a bird in sight,
off Cape Froward, the southernmost point of the
continent of America. By daylight in the morning
I was getting my ship under way for the bout
ahead.

The sloop held the wind fair while she ran
thirty miles farther on her course, which brought
her to Fortescue Bay, and at once among the
natives’ signal-fires, which blazed up now on all
sides. Clouds flew over the mountain from the
west all day; at night my good east wind failed,
and in its stead a gale from the west soon came on.
I gained anchorage at twelve o’clock that night,
under the lee of a little island, and then prepared
myself a cup of coffee, of which I was sorely in
need; for, to tell the truth, hard beating in the
heavy squalls and against the current had told on
my strength. Finding that the anchor held, I
drank my beverage, and named the place Coffee
Island. It lies to the south of Charles Island, with
only a narrow channel between.

By daylight the next morning the Spray was
again under way, beating hard; but she came to

(udexsojoud s wory)
*Bu'*vrppu] Aq poseqo suA houdgy ou corey ‘Leg onosəlro,T UIOIJ 480M4 SUTXOO!'T

CHASED BY INDIANS FROM FORTESCUE BAY 91

in a cove in Charles Island, two and a half miles
along on her eourse. Here she remained undis-
turbed two days, with both anchors down in a bed
of kelp. Indeed,she might have remained undis-
turbed indefinitely had not the wind moderated;
for during these two days it blew so hard that no
boat could venture out on the strait, and the na-
tives being away to other hunting-grounds, the isl-
and anchorage was safe. But at the end of the
fieree wind-storm fair weather came; then I got
my anchors, and again sailed out upon the strait.
Canoes manned by savages from Fortescue now
eame in pursuit. The wind falling light, they
gained on me rapidly till coming within hail, when
they ceased paddling, and a bow-legged savage
stood up and called to me, * Yammerschooner !
yammerschooner!? which is their begging term.
I said, “No!” Now, I was not for letting on
that I was alone, and so I stepped into the
cabin, and, passing through the hold, came out at
the fore-scuttle, changing my clothes as I went
along. That made two men. Then the piece of
bowsprit which I had sawed off at Buenos Aires,
and which I had still on board, I arranged forward
on the lookout, dressed as a seaman, attaching a
line by which I could pull it into motion. That
made three of us, and we did wt want to “yam-
merschooner”; but for all that the savages came
on faster than before. I saw that besides four at
the paddles in the canoe nearest to me, there were
others in the bottom, and that they were shifting
hands often. At eighty yards I fired a shot across
the bows of the nearest canoe, at which they all

92 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

stopped, but only for a moment. Seeing that they
persisted in coming nearer, I fired the second shot
so close to the chap who wanted to “yammer-
schooner” that he changed his mind quickly enough
and bellowed with fear, “Bueno jo via Isla,” and
sitting down in his canoe, he rubbed his starboard
eat-head for some time. I was thinking of the
good port captain’s advice when I pulled the trig-
ger, and must have aimed pretty straight; how-
ever, a miss was as good as a mile for Mr. “ Black
Pedro,” as he it was, and no other, a leader in
several bloody massacres. He made for the island
now, and the others followed him. I knew by his
Spanish lingo and by his full beard that he was
the villain I have named, a renegade mongrel, and
the worst murderer in Tierra del Fuego. The
authorities had been in search of him for two years.
The Fuegians are not bearded.

So much for the first day among the savages. I
came to anchor at midnight in Three Island Cove,
about twenty miles along from Fortescue Bay. I
saw on the opposite side of the strait signal-fires,
and heard the barking of dogs, but where I lay it
was quite deserted by natives. I have always
taken it as a sign that where I found birds sitting
about, or seals on the rocks, I should not find
savage Indians. Seals are never plentiful in these
waters, but in Three Island Cove I saw one on the
rocks, and other signs of the absence of savage men.

On the next day the wind was again blowing a
gale, and although she was in the lee of the land,
the sloop dragged her anchors, so that I had to get
her under way and beat farther into the cove, where

*Suerden,pT QjrA qSniq v

94 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

I came to in a landlocked pool. At another time
or place this would have been a rash thing to do,
and it was safe now only from the fact that the gale
which drove me to shelter would keep the Indians
from crossing the strait. Seeing this was the case,
I went ashore with gun and ax on an island, where
I could not in any event be surprised, and there
felled trees and split about a cord of fire-wood,
which loaded my small boat several times.

While I carried the wood, though I was morally
sure there were no savages near, I never once went
to or from the skiff without my gun. While I had
that and a clear field of over eighty yards about me
I felt safe.

The trees on the island, very scattering, were
a sort of beech and a stunted cedar, both of which
made good fuel. Even the green limbs of the
beech, which seemed to possess a resinous qual-
ity, burned readily in my great drum-stove. I
have described my method of wooding up in detail,
that the reader who has kindly borne with me so
far may see that in this, as in all other particulars
of my voyage, I took great care against all kinds
of surprises, whether by animals or by the elements.
In the Strait of Magellan the greatest vigilance was
necessary. In this instance I reasoned that I had
all about me the greatest danger of the whole
voyage— the treachery of cunning savages, for
whieh I must be particularly on the alert.

The Spray seiled from Three Island Cove in the
morning after the gale went down, but was glad to
return for shelter from another sudden gale. Sail-
ing again on the following day, she fetehed Borgia

AT THREE ISLAND COVE 95

Bay, a few miles on her course, where vessels had
anchored from time to time and had nailed boards
on the trees ashore with name and date of harboring
carved or painted. Nothing else could I see to in-
dicate that civilized man had ever been there. I
had taken a survey of the gloomy place with my
spy-glass, and was getting my boat out to land and

A bit of friendly assistance.
(After a sketch by Midshipman Miguel Arenas.)

take notes, when the Chilean gunboat Huemel came
in, and officers, coming on board, advised me to
leave the place at once, a thing that required little
eloquence to persuade me to do. I accepted the
eaptain's kind offer of a tow to the next anchorage,
at the place called Notch Cove, eight miles farther
along, where I should be clear of the worst of the
Fuegians.

We made anchorage at the cove about dark
that night, while the wind came down in fierce
williwaws from the mountains. An instance of
Magellan weather was afforded when the Huemel, a
well-appointed gunboat of great power, after at-
tempting on the following day to proceed on her
voyage, was obliged by sheer force of the wind to

96 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

return and take up anchorage again and remain till
the gale abated; and lucky she was to get back!

Meeting this vessel was a little godsend. She
was commanded and officered by high-class sailors
and edueated gentlemen. .An entertainment that
was gotten up on her, impromptu, at the Noteh
would be hard to beat anywhere. One of her mid-
shipmen sang popular songs in French, German, and
Spanish, and one (so he said) in Russian. If the
audience did not know the lingo of one song from
another, it was no drawback to the merriment.

I was left alone the next day, for then the Huemel
put out on her voyage the gale having abated.
I spent a day taking in wood and water; by the
end of that time the weather was fine. Then I
sailed from the desolate place.

There is little more to be said concerning the
Spray’s first passage through the strait that would
differ from what I have already recorded. She
anchored and weighed many times, and beat many
days against the current, with now and then a
“slant” for a few miles, till finally she gained
anchorage and shelter for the night at Port Tamar,
with Cape Pillar in sight to the west. Here I felt
the throb of the great ocean that lay before me. I
knew now that I had put a world behind me, and
that I was opening out another world ahead. I
had passed the haunts of savages. Great piles of
granite mountains of bleak and lifeless aspect were
now astern; on some of them not even a speck of
moss had ever grown. There was an unfinished
newness all about the land. On the hill back of
Port Tamar a small beacon had been thrown up,

ANIMAL LIFE 97

showing that some man had been there. But how
eould one tell but that he had died of loneliness and
grief? In a bleak land is not the place to enjoy
solitude.

Throughout the whole of the strait west of Cape
Froward I saw no animals except dogs owned by
savages. These I saw often enough, and heard
them yelping night and day. Birds were not plen-
tiful. 'The scream of a wild fowl, which I took for
a loon, sometimes startled me with its piercing ery.
The steamboat duck, so called because it propels
itself over the sea with its wings, and resembles a
miniature side-wheel steamer in its motion, was
sometimes seen scurrying on out of danger. It
never flies, but, hitting the water instead of the
air with its wings, it moves faster than a rowboat
or a canoe. The few fur-seals I saw were very shy;
and of fishes I saw next to none at all. I did not catch
one; indeed, I seldom or never put a hook over
during the whole voyage. Here in the strait I found
great abundance of mussels of an excellent quality.
I fared sumptuously on them. There was a sort of
swan, smaller than a Muscovy duck, which might
have been brought down with the gun, but in the
loneliness of life about the dreary country I found
myself in no mood to make one life less, except
: in self-defense.

CHAPTER VIIT

From Cape Pilar into the Pacifie— Driven by a tempest toward
Cape Horn — Captain Slocum’s greatest sea adventure — Reach-
ing the strait again by way of Cockburn Channel — Some sav-
ages find the earpet-tacks — Danger from firebrands — A series
of fierce williwaws — Again sailing westward.

T was the 3d of March when the Spray sailed
from Port Tamar direct for Cape Pillar, with the
wind from the northeast, which I fervently hoped
might hold till she cleared the land; but there was
no such good luck in store. It soon began to rain
and thicken in the northwest, boding no good. The
Spray neared Cape Pillar rapidly, and, nothing
loath, plunged into the Pacific Ocean at once, tak-
ing her first bath of it in the gathering storm.
There was no turning back even had I wished to
do so, for the land was now shut out by the dark-
ness of night. The wind freshened, and I took
in a third reef. The sea was confused and treach-
erous. In such a time as this the old fisherman
prayed, “ Remember, Lord, my ship is small and
thy sea is so wide!" I saw now only the gleam-
ing crests of the waves. They showed white teeth
while the sloop balanced over them. “Everything
for an offing,” I cried, and to this end I carried on
all the sail she would bear. She ran all night with
a free sheet, but on the morning of March 4 the
98

DRIVEN BY A TEMPEST 99

wind shifted to southwest, then back suddenly to
northwest, and blew with terrific force. The Spray,
stripped of her sails, then bore off under bare poles.
No ship in the world could have stood up against
so violent a gale. Knowing that this storm might
continue for many days, and that it would be im-
possible to work back to the westward along the
coast outside of Tierra del Fuego, there seemed
nothing to do but to keep on and go east about,

Cape Pillar.

after all. Anyhow, for my present safety the only
course lay in keeping her before the wind. And so
she drove southeast, as though about to round the
Horn, while the waves rose and fell and bellowed
their never-ending story of the sea; but the Hand
that held these held also the Spray. She was run-
ning now with a reefed forestaysail, the sheets flat
amidship. I paid out two long ropes to steady
her course and to break combing seas astern, and I
lashed the helm amidship. In this trim she ran
before it, shipping never a sea. Even while the
storm raged at its worst, my ship was wholesome

100 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

and noble. My mind as to her seaworthiness was
put at ease for aye.

When all had been done that I could do for the
safety of the vessel, I got to the fore-scuttle, be-
tween seas, and prepared a pot of coffee over a wood
fire, and made a good Irish stew. Then, as before
and afterward on the Spray, I insisted on warm
meals. In the tide-race off Cape Pillar, however,
where the sea was marvelously high, uneven, and
crooked, my appetite was slim, and for a time I
postponed cooking. (Confidentially, I was seasick!)

The first day of the storm gave the Spray her
actual test in the worst sea that Cape Horn or its
wild regions could afford, and in no part of the
world eould a rougher sea be found than at this
partieular point, namely, off Cape Pillar, the grim
sentinel of the Horn.

Farther offshore, while the sea was majestic, there
was less apprehension of danger. There the Spray
rode, now like a bird on the crest of a wave,
and now like a waif deep down in the hollow
between seas; and so she drove on. Whole days
passed, counted as other days, but with always a
thrill — yes, of delight.

On the fourth day of the gale, rapidly nearing
the piteh of Cape Horn, I inspected my chart and
pricked off the course and distance to Port Stanley,
in the Falkland Islands, where I might find my
way and refit, when I saw through a rift in the
clouds a high mountain, about seven leagues away
on the port beam. The fierce edge of the gale by this
time had blown off, and I had already bent a square-
sail on the boom in place of the mainsail, which

REACHING THE STRAIT OF MAGELLAN AGAIN 101

was torn to rags. I hauled in the trailing ropes,
hoisted this awkward sail reefed, the forestaysail
being already set, and under this sail brought her
at once on the wind heading for the land, which
appeared as an island in the sea. So it turned out
to be, though not the one I had supposed.

I was exultant over the prospect of once more
entering the Strait of Magellan and beating through
again into the Pacific, for it was more than rough
on the outside coast of Tierra del Fuego. It was
indeed a mountainous sea. When the sloop was in
the fiercest squalls, with only the reefed forestaysail
set, even that small sail shook her from keelson to
truck when it shivered by the leech. Had I har-
bored the shadow of a doubt for her safety, it would
have been that she might spring a leak in the gar-
board at the heel of the mast; but she never called
me once to the pump. Under pressure of the
smallest sail I could set she made for the land like
a race-horse, and steering her over the crests of the
waves so that she might not trip was nice work.
I stood at the helm now and made the most of it.

Night closed in before the sloop reached the
land, leaving her feeling the way in pitchy dark-
ness. I saw breakers ahead before long. At this I
wore ship and stood offshore, but was immediately
startled by the tremendous roaring of breakers
again ahead and on the lee bow. This puzzled me,
for there should have been no broken water where
I supposed myself to be. I kept off a good bit,
then wore round, but finding broken water also
there, threw her head again offshore. In this way,
among dangers, I spent the rest of the night. Hail

102 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

and sleet in the fierce squalls cut my flesh till the
blood trickled over my face; but what of that? It
was daylight, and the sloop was in the midst of the
Milky Way of the sea, which is northwest of Cape
Horn, and it was the white breakers of a huge sea
over sunken rocks whieh had threatened to engulf
her through the night. It was Fury Island I had
sighted and steered for, and what a panorama was
before me now and all around! lt was not the
time to complain of a broken skin. What could I
do but fill away among the breakers and find a
channel between them, now that it wasday? Since
she had escaped the rocks through the night, surely
she would find her way by daylight. This was the
greatest sea adventure of my life. God knows how
my vessel escaped.

The sloop at last reached inside of small islands
that sheltered her in smooth water. Then I climbed
the mast to survey the wild scene astern. The
great naturalist Darwin looked over this seascape
from the deck of the Beagle, and wrote in his journal,
“Any landsman seeing the Milky Way would have
nightmare for a week? He might have added, “or
seaman” as well.

The Spray’s good luck followed fast. I discov-
ered, as she sailed along through a labyrinth of
islands, that she was in the Cockburn Channel,
which leads into the Strait of Magellan at a point
opposite Cape Froward, and that she was already
passing Thieves’ Bay, suggestively named. And
at night, March 8, behold, she was at anchor in a
snug cove at the Turn! Every heart-beat on the
Spray now counted thanks.

SAVAGES FIND THE CARPET-TACKS 108

Here I pondered on the events of the last few
days, and, strangely enough, instead of feeling
rested from sitting or lying down, I now began to
feel jaded and worn; but a hot meal of venison
stew soon put me right, so that I could sleep. As
drowsiness eame on I sprinkled the deck with
tacks, and then I turned in, bearing in mind the
advice of my old friend Samblieh that I was not
to step on them myself. I saw to it that not a
few of them stood “business end? up; for when
the Spray passed Thieves’ Bay two canoes had put
out and followed in her wake, and there was no
disguising the fact any longer that I was alone.

Now,it is well known that one cannot step on à
tack without saying something about it. A pretty
good Christian will whistle when he steps on the
“commercial end" of a carpet-tack ; a savage will
howl and claw the air, and that was just what hap-
pened that night about twelve o’clock, while I was
asleep in the cabin, where the savages thought they
“had me,” sloop and all, but changed their minds
when they stepped on deck, for then they thought
that I or somebody else had them. I had no need
of a dog; they howled like a pack of hounds. I
had hardly use for a gun. They jumped pell-mell,
some into their canoes and some into the sea, to
cool off, I suppose, and there was a deal of free lan-
guage over it as they went. I fired several guns
when I came on deck, to let the rascals know that
I was home, and then I turned in again, feeling sure
I should not be disturbed any more by people who
left in so great a hurry.

The Fuegians, being cruel, are naturally cowards;

104 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

they regard a rifle with superstitious fear. The
only real danger one could see that might come
from their quarter would be from allowing them to
surround one within bow-shot, or to anchor within

“ They howled like a pack of hounds.”

range where they might lie in ambush. As for
their coming on deck at night, even had I not put
tacks about, I could have cleared them off by
shots from the cabin and hold. I always kept a
quantity of ammunition within reach in the hold
and in the cabin and in the forepeak, so that

DANGER FROM FIREBRANDS 105

retreating to any of these places I could *hold the
fort" simply by shooting up through the deck.

Perhaps the greatest danger to be apprehended
was from the use of fire. Every canoe carries fire;
nothing is thought of that, for it is their custom
to communicate by smoke-signals. The harmless
brand that lies smoldering in the bottom of one of
their canoes might be ablaze in one's cabin if he
were not on the alert. The port captain of Sandy
Point warned me partieularly of this danger. Only
a short time before they had fired a Chilean gun-
boat by throwing brands in through the stern
windows of the cabin. The Spray had no openings
in the cabin or deck, except two scuttles, and these
were guarded by fastenings which could not be
undone without waking me if I were asleep.

On the morning of the 9th, after a refreshing
rest and a warm breakfast, and after I had swept
the deck of taeks, I got out what spare canvas
there was on board, and began to sew the pieces
together in the shape of a peak for my square-
mainsail, the tarpaulin. The day to all appearances
promised fine weather and light winds, but appear-
ances in Tierra del Fuego do not always count.
While I was wondering why no trees grew on the
slope abreast of the anchorage, half minded to lay
by the sail-making and land with my gun for some
game and to inspect a white boulder on the beach,
near the brook, a williwaw came down with such
terrific force as to carry the Spray, with two
anchors down, like a feather out of the cove and
away into deep water. No wonder trees did not
grow on the side of that hill! Great Boreas! a

106 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

tree would need to be all roots to hold on against
such a furious wind.

From the cove to the nearest land to leeward was
a long drift, however, and I had ample time to
weigh both anchors before the sloop came near any
danger, and so no harm came of it. Isaw no more
savages that day or the next; they probably had
some sign by which they knew of the coming willi-
waws; at least, they were wise in not being afloat
even on the second day, for I had no sooner gotten
to work at sail-making again, after the anchor was
down, than the wind, as on the day before, picked
the sloop up and flung her seaward with a ven-
geance, anchor and all, as before. This fierce wind,
usual to the Magellan country, continued on through
the day, and swept the sloop by several miles of
steep bluffs and precipices overhanging a bold
shore of wild and uninviting appearance. I was
not sorry to get away from it, though in doing so
it was no Elysian shore to which I shaped my
course. I kept on sailing in hope, since I had no
choice but to go on, heading across for St. Nicholas
Bay, where I had east anchor February 19. It was
now the 10th of March! Upon reaching the bay
the second time I had cireumnavigated the wildest
part of desolate Tierra del Fuego. But the Spray
had not yet arrived at St. Nicholas, and by the
merest accident her bones were saved from resting
there when she did arrive. The parting of a stay-
sail-sheet in a williwaw, when the sea was turbulent
and she was plunging into the storm, brought me
forward to see instantly a dark cliff ahead and
breakers so close under the bows that I felt surely

A SERIES OF FIERCE WILLIWAWS 107

lost, and in my thoughts cried, “Is the hand of fate
against me, after all, leading me in the end to this
dark spot?” I sprang aft again, unheeding the
flapping sail, and threw the wheel over, expecting,
as the sloop came down into the hollow of a wave,
to feel her timbers smash under me on the rocks.

$| —
nate N-
Ja,

r 2 X pa -
w = Parama

A glimpse of Sandy Point (Punta Arenas) in the Strait of Magellan.

But at the touch of her helm she swung clear of the
danger, and in the next moment she was in the lee
of the land.

It was the small island in the middle of the bay
for which the sloop had been steering, and whieh
she made with such unerring aim as nearly to run
it down. Farther along in the bay was the anchor-
age, which I managed to reach, but before I could

108 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

get the anchor down another squall caught the
sloop and whirled her round like a top and carried
her away, altogether to leeward of the bay. Still
farther to leeward was a great headland, and I bore
off for that. This was retracing my course toward
Sandy Point, for the gale was from the southwest.

I had the sloop soon under good control, how-
ever, and in a short time rounded to under the lee
of a mountain, where the sea was as smooth as a
mill-pond, and the sails flapped and hung limp
while she carried her way close in. Here I thought
I would anchor and rest till morning, the depth
being eight fathoms very close to the shore. But
it was interesting to see, as I let go the anchor,
that it did not reach the bottom before another
williwaw struck down from this mountain and
carried the sloop off faster than I could pay out
cable. Therefore, instead of resting, I had to “man
the windlass” and heave up the anchor with fifty
fathoms of eable hanging up and down in deep
water. This was in that part of the strait called
Famine Reach. Dismal Famine Reach! On the
sloop’s crab-windlass I worked the resi of the night,
thinking how much easier it was for me when I
could say, “ Do that thing or the other,” than now
doing all myself. But I hove away and sang the
old chants that I sang when I was a sailor. Within
the last few days I had passed through much and
was now thankful that my state was no worse.

It was daybreak when the anchor was at the
hawse. By this time the wind had gone down, and
cat’s-paws took the place of williwaws, while the
sloop drifted slowly toward Sandy Point. She

AGAIN SAILING WESTWARD 109

came within sight of ships at anchor in the roads,
and I was more than half minded to put in for new
sails, but the wind coming out from the northeast,
ch was fair for the other direction, I turned
the prow of the Spray westward once more for the
Pacific, to traverse a second time the second half of
my D course through the strait.

CHAPTER IX

Repairing the Spray’s sails — Savages and an obstreperous anchor —
A spider-fight — An encounter with Black Pedro — A visit to the

steamship Colombia — On the defensive against a fleet of canoes `

— À record of voyages through the strait—A chance cargo of
tallow.

WAS determined to rely on my own small
resources to repair the damages of the great
gale which drove me southward toward the
Horn, after I had passed from the Strait of Ma-
gellan out into the Pacific. So when I had got
back into the strait, by way of Cockburn Channel,
I did not proceed eastward for help at the Sandy
Point settlement, but turning again into the north-
westward reach of the strait, set to work with my
palm and needle at every opportunity, when at
anchor and when sailing. It was slow work; but
little by little the squaresail on the boom expanded
to the dimensions of a serviceable mainsail with a
peak to it and a leech besides. If it was not the
best-setting sail afloat, it was at least very strongly
made and would stand a hard blow. A ship, meet-
ing the Spray long afterward, reported her as wear-
ing a mainsail of some improved design and patent
reefer, but that was not the case.
The Spray for a few days after the storm enjoyed

fine weather, and made fair time through the strait
110

SAVAGES AND AN OBSTREPEROUS ANCHOK 111

for the distance of twenty miles, which, in these
days of many adversities, I called a long run. The
weather, I say, was fine for a few days; but it
brought little rest. Care for the safety of my ves-
sel, and even for my own life, was in no wise les-
sened by the absence of heavy weather. Indeed,
the peril was even greater, inasmuch as the savages
on comparatively fine days ventured forth on their
marauding excursions, and in boisterous weather
disappeared from sight, their wretched canoes
being frail and undeserving the name of craft at all.
This being so, I now enjoyed gales of wind as never
before, and the Spray was never long without them
during her struggles about Cape Horn. I became
in a measure inured to the life, and began to think
that one more trip through the strait, if perchance
the sloop should be blown off again, would make
me the aggressor, and put the Fuegians entirely on
the defensive. This feeling was forcibly borne in
on me at Snug Bay, where I anchored at gray
morning after passing Cape Froward, to find, when
broad day appeared, that two canoes which I had
eluded by sailing all night were now entering the
same bay stealthily under the shadow of the high
headland. They were well manned, and the sav-
ages were well armed with spears and bows. At
a shot from my rifle across the bows, both turned
aside into a small creek out of range. In danger
now of being flanked by the savages in the bush
close aboard, I was obliged to hoist the sails, which
I had barely lowered, and make across to the op-
posite side of the strait, a distance of six miles.
But now I was put to my wit’s end as to how I

112 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

should weigh anchor, for through an accident to
the windlass right here I could not budge it. How-
ever, I set all sail and filled away, first hauling
short by hand. The sloop carried her anchor away,
as though it was meant to be always towed in this
way underfoot, and with it she towed a ton or more
of kelp from a reef in the bay, the wind blowing a
wholesale breeze.

Meanwhile I worked till blood started from my
fingers, and with one eye over my shoulder for
savages, I watched at the same time, and sent a
bullet whistling whenever I saw a limb or a twig
move; for I kept a gun always at hand, and an In-
dian appearing then within range would have been
taken as a declaration of war. As it was, however,
my own blood was all that was spilt—and from the
trifling accident of sometimes breaking the flesh
against a cleat or a pin which came in the way
when I was in haste. Sea-cuts in my hands from
pulling on hard, wet ropes were sometimes painful
and often bled freely; but these healed when I
finally got away from the strait into fine weather.

After clearing Snug Bay I hauled the sloop to
the wind, repaired the windlass, and hove the
anchor to the hawse, catted it, and then stretched
across to a port of refuge under a high mountain
about six miles away, and came to in nine fathoms
close under the face of a perpendicular cliff. Here
my own voice answered back, and I named the
place * Echo Mountain? Seeing dead trees farther
along where the shore was broken, I made a landing
for fuel, taking, besides my ax, a rifle, which on
these days I never left far from hand; but I saw

A SPIDER-FIGHT 115

no living thing here, except a small spider, which
had nested in a dry log that I boated to the sloop.
The eonduet of this insect interested me now more
than anything else around the wild place. In my
cabin it met, oddly enough, a spider of its own
size and species that had come all the way from
Boston — a very civil little chap, too, but mighty
spry. Well, the Fuegian threw up its antennz for
a fight; but my little Bostonian downed it at once,
then broke its legs, and pulled them off, one by one,
so dexterously that in less than three minutes from
the time the battle began the Fuegian spider did n't
know itself from a fly.

I made haste the following morning to be under -
way after a night of wakefulness on the weird
shore. Before weighing anchor, however, I pre-
pared a cup of warm coffee over a smart wood fire
in my great Montevideo stove. In the same fire
was cremated the Fuegian spider, slain the day be-
fore by the little warrior from Boston, whieh a
Scots lady at Cape Town long after named “ Bruce”
upon hearing of its prowess at Echo Mountain.
The Spray now reached away for Coffee Island,
which I sighted on my birthday, February 20, 1896.

There she encountered another gale, that brought
her in the lee of great Charles Island for shelter.
On a bluff point on Charles were signal-fires, and
a tribe of savages, mustered here since my first
trip through the strait, manned their canoes to
put off for the sloop. It was not prudent to come
to, the anchorage being within bow-shot of the
shore, which was thickly wooded; but I made signs

that one canoe might come alongside, while the
°

uci 9100 0RIOUIUI? X , 5,

AN ENCOUNTER WITH BLACK PEDRO 118

sloop ranged about under sail in the lee of the
land. The others I motioned to keep off, and in-
eidentally laid a smart Martini-Henry rifle in sight,
close at hand, on the top of the cabin. In the
canoe that came alongside, crying their never-end-
ing begging word “yammerschooner,” were two
squaws and one Indian, the hardest specimens of
humanity I had ever seen in any of my travels.
* Yammerschooner? was their plaint when they
pushed off from the shore, and “ yammerschooner”
it was when they got alongside. The squaws beck-
oned for food, while the Indian, a black-visaged
savage, stood sulkily as if he took no interest at all
in the matter, but on my turning my back for some
biscuits and jerked beef for the squaws, the “ buck”
sprang on deck and confronted me, saying in Span-
ish jargon that we had met before. I thought I
recognized the tone of his * yammerschooner,” and
his full beard identified him as the Black Pedro
whom, it was true, I had met before. ‘ Where are
the rest of the crew ?" he asked, as he looked un-
easily around, expecting hands, maybe, to come
out of the fore-scuttle and deal him his just deserts
for many murders. “About three weeks ago,”
said he, “when you passed up here, I saw three
men on board. Where are the other two?” I an-
swered him briefly that the same crew was still on
board. “ But,"said he, “I see you are doing all
the work,” and with a leer he added, as he glanced
at the mainsail, “hombre valiente? I explained
that I did all the work 1n the day, while the rest
of the crew slept, so that they would be fresh to
wateh for Indians at night. I was interested in

116 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

the subtle cunning of this savage, knowing him, as
I did, better perhaps than he was aware. Even
had I not been advised before I sailed from Sandy
Point, I should have measured him for an arch-
villain now. Moreover, one of the squaws, with
that spark of kindliness which is somehow found
in the breast of even the lowest savage, warned me
by a sign to be on my guard, or Black Pedro would
do me harm. "There was no need of the warning,
however, for I was on my guard from the first, and
at that moment held a smart revolver in my, hand
ready for instant service.

* When you sailed through here before,” he said,
“you fired a shot at me,” adding with some warmth
that it was “muy malo.” I affected not to under-
stand, and said, * You have lived at Sandy Point,
have you not?" He answered frankly, “ Yes," and
appeared delighted to meet one who had come from
the dear old place. “At the mission?” I queried.
* Why, yes,” he replied, stepping forward as if to
embrace an old friend. I motioned him back, for
I did not share his flattering humor. * And you
know Captain Pedro Samblieh ?” continued I.
“Yes,” said the villain, who had killed a kinsman
of Samblieh — “ yes, indeed; he is a great friend
of mine? “I know it,” said I. Samblich had told
me to shoot him on sight. Pointing to my rifle on
the cabin, he wanted to know how many times it
fired. “Cuantos?” said he. When I explained to
him that that gun kept right on shooting, his jaw
fell, and he spoke of getting away. I did not hin-
der him from going. I gave the squaws biseuits
and beef, and one of them gave me several lumps

AN ENCOUNTER WITH BLACK PEDRO 117

of tallow in exchange, and I think it worth men-
tioning that she did not offer me the smallest
pieces, but with some extra trouble handed me the
largest of all the pieces in the canoe. No Christian
could have done more. Before pushing off from
the sloop the cunning savage asked for matches,
and made as if to reach with the end of his spear
the box I was about to give him; but I held it to-
ward him on the muzzle of my rifle, the one that
* kept on shooting." The chap picked the box off
the gun gingerly enough, to be sure, but he jumped
when I said, ^Quedao [Look out],” at which the
squaws laughed and seemed not at all displeased.
Perhaps the wretch had clubbed them that morn-
ing for not gathering mussels enough for his
breakfast. There was a good understanding
among us all.

From Charles Island the Spray crossed over to
Fortescue Bay, where she anchored and spent a
comfortable night under the lee of high land, while
the wind howled outside. The bay was deserted
now. They were Fortescue Indians whom [ had
seen at the island, and I felt quite sure they could
not follow the Spray in the present hard blow. Not
to neglect a precaution, however, I sprinkled tacks
on deck before I turned in.

On the following day the loneliness of the place
was broken by the appearance of a great steamship,
making for the anchorage with a lofty bearing.
She was no Diego craft. I knew the sheer, the
model, and the poise. I threw out my flag, and
directly saw the Stars and Stripes flung to the
breeze from the great ship.

118 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

The wind had then abated, and toward night
the savages made their appearance from the island,
going direct to the steamer to “ yammerschooner.”
Then they came to the Spray to beg more, or to
steal all, declaring that they got nothing from the
steamer. Black Pedro here came alongside again.
My own brother eould not have been more de-
lighted to see me, and he begged me to lend him my
rifle to shoot a guanaeo for me in the morning.
I assured the fellow that if I remained there an-
other day I would lend bim the gun, but I had no
mind to remain. I gave him a cooper’s draw-knife
and some other small implements which would be
of service in canoe-making, and bade him be off.

Under the cover of darkness that night I went
to the steamer, which I found to be the Colombia,
Captain Henderson, from New York, bound for San
Francisco. Icarried all my guns along with me, in
ease it should be necessary to fight my way back.
In the chief mate of the Colombia, Mr. Hannibal, I
found an old friend, and he referred affectionately
to days in Manila when we were there together, he
in the Southern Cross and I in the Northern Light,
both ships as beautiful as their names.

The Colombia had an abundance of fresh stores
on board. The captain gave his steward some
order, and I remember that the guileless young
man asked me if I could manage, besides other
things, a few cans of milk and a cheese. When I
offered my Montevideo gold for the supplies, the
captain roared like a lion and told me to put my
money up. It was a glorious outfit of provisions
^f all kinds that I got.

A VISIT TO THE STEAMSHIP “COLOMBIA” 119

Returning to the Spray, where I found all secure,
I prepared for an early start in the morning. It
was agreed that the steamer should blow her
whistle for me if first on the move. I watched

A contrast in lighting — the electric lights of the Colombia
and the eanoe fires of the Fortescue Indians.

the steamer, off and on, through the night for the
pleasure aione of seeing her electric lights, a pleas-
ing sight in contrast to the ordinary Fuegian
canoe with a brand of fire in it. The sloop was
the first under way, but the Colombia, soon fol-
lowing, passed, and saluted as she went by. Had
the captain given me his steamer, his company

120 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

would have been no worse off than they were two
or three months later. I read afterward, in a late
California paper, “The Colombia wil be a total
loss.” On her second trip to Panama she was
wrecked on the rocks of the California coast.

The Spray was then beating against wind and
current, as usual in the strait. At this point the
tides from the Atlantie and the Paeifie meet, and
in the strait, as on the outside coast, their meet-
ing makes a commotion of whirlpools and combers
that in a gale of wind is dangerous to canoes and
other frail craft.

A few miles farther along was a large steamer
ashore, bottom up. Passing this place, the sloop
ran into a streak of light wind, and then — a most
remarkable condition for strait weather —it fell
entirely calm. Signal-fires sprang up at once on
all sides, and then more than twenty canoes hove
in sight, all heading for the Spray. As they came
within hail, their savage crews cried, “ Amigo
yammerschooner," * Anclas aqui,” * Bueno puerto
aqui," and like seraps of Spanish mixed with their
own jargon. I had no thought of anchoring in
their “good port.” I hoisted the sloop’s flag and
fired a gun, all of which they might construe as à
friendly salute or an invitation to come on. They
drew up in a semicircle, but kept outside of eighty
yards, whieh in self-defense would have been the
death-line.

In their mosquito fleet was a ship's boat stolen
probably from a murdered crew. Six savages
paddled this rather awkwardly with the blades of
oars which had been broken off. Two of the

ON THE DEFENSIVE AGAINST A FLEET OF CANOES 121

savages standing erect wore sea-boots, and this
sustained the suspicion that they had fallen upon
some luckless ship's crew, and also added a hint
that they had already visited the Spray’s deck, and
would now, if they could, try her again. Their
sea-boots, I have no doubt, would have protected
their feet and rendered carpet-tacks harmless.
Paddling clumsily, they passed down the strait
at a distance of a hundred yards from the sloop,
in an offhand manner and as if bound to Fortes-
eue Bay. This I judged to be a piece of strategy,
and so kept a sharp lookout over a small island
which soon came in range between them and
the sloop, completely hiding them from view,
and toward which the Spray was now drifting
helplessly with the tide, and with every prospect of
going on the rocks, for there was no anchorage, at
least, none that my cables would reach. And, sure
enough, I soon saw a movement in the grass just
on top of the island, which is called Bonet Island
and is one hundred and thirty-six feet high. I
fired several shots over the place, but saw no other
sign of the savages. It was they that had moved
the grass, for as the sloop swept past the island,
the rebound of the tide carrying her clear, there on
the other side was the boat, surely enough ex-
posing their cunning and treachery. A stiff breeze,
coming up suddenly, now scattered the canoes
while it extricated the sloop from a dangerous
position, albeit the wind, though friendly, was still
ahead.

The Spray, flogging against current and wind,
made Borgia Bay on the following afternoon, and

122 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

east anchor there for the second time. I would
how, if I could, describe the moonlit scene on the
strait at midnight after I had cleared the savages
and Bonet Island.
A heavy eloud-bank
that had swept across
the sky then cleared
away, and the night
beeame suddenly as

COS PS Sso 5 lghtasday,ornearly
[S.S.COLIMBIA dmt. 80 JA high moui
YORE TO PORTLANp!0830///7.5 tain was mirrored in

— Aee di Ey A 4), p the channel ahead,
m a 4» and the Spray sail-

ing along with

her shadow was as
two sloops on the
sea.

The sloop being
moored, I threw out
my skiff, and with ax
and gun landed at

Records of passages through the
strait at the head of Borgia Bay. the head of the cove,

Norz.— On a small bush nearer the water there wasa Nd filled a barrel of
wore added tho words “Sloop pray, Maret, ie" Water from a stream.
Then, as before, there

was no sign of Indians at the place. Finding it
quite deserted, I rambled about near the beach for
an hour or more. The fine weather seemed, some-
how, to add loneliness to the place, and when I
came upon a spot where a grave was marked I
went no farther. Returning to the head of the

cove, I came to a sort of Calvary, it appeared to

A RECORD OF VOYAGES THROUGH THE STRAIT 123

me, where navigators, carrying their cross, had
each set one up as a beacon to others coming
after. They had anchored here and gone on, all
except the one under the little mound. One of
the simple marks, curiously enough, had been left
there by the steamship Colimbia, sister ship to the
Colombia, my neighbor of that morning.

I read the names of many other vessels; some of
them I copied in my journal, others were illegible.
Many of the crosses had decayed and fallen, and
many a hand that put them there I had known,
many a hand now still. The air of depression was
about the place, and I hurried back to the sloop to
forget myself again in the voyage.

Early the next morning I stood out from Borgia
Bay, and off Cape Quod, where the wind fell light,
I moored the sloop by kelp in twenty fathoms of
water, and held her there a few hours against a
three-knot current. That night I anchored in
Langara Cove, a few miles farther along, where on
the following day I discovered wreckage and goods
washed up from the sea. I worked all day now,
salving and boating off a cargo to the sloop. The
bulk of the goods was tallow in casks and in lumps
from which the casks had broken away; and em-
bedded in the seaweed was a barrel of wine, which
I also towed alongside. I hoisted them all in with
the throat-halyards, which I took to the windlass.
The weight of some of the casks was a little over
eight hundred pounds.

There were no Indians about Langara; evidently
there had not been any since the great gale which
had washed the wreckage on shore. Probably it

8039910. SulA sg

A CHANCE CARGO OF TALLOW 125

was the same gale that drove the Spray off Cape
Horn, from Mareh 3 to 8. Hundreds of tons of
kelp had been torn from beds in deep water and
rolled up into ridges on the beach. A specimen
stalk which I found entire, roots, leaves, and all,
measured one hundred and thirty-one feet in
length. At this place I filled a barrel of water at
night, and on the following day sailed with a fair
wind at last.

I had not sailed far, however, when I came
abreast of more tallow in a small cove, where I
anchored, and boated off as before. It rained and
snowed hard all that day, and it was no light work
earrying tallow in my arms over the boulders on
the beach. But I worked on till the Spray was
loaded with a full eargo. I was happy then in the
prospeet of doing a good business farther along on
the voyage, for the habits of an old trader would
come to the surface. I sailed from the cove about
noon, greased from top to toe, while my vessel was
tallowed from keelson to truck. My cabin, as well
as the hold and deck, was stowed full of tallow,
and all were thoroughly smeared.

CHAPTER X

Running to Port Angosto in a snow-storm — À defective sheet-
rope plaeos the Spray in peril — The Spray as a target for a Fue-
gian arrow — The island of Alan Errie— Again in the open
Paeifie — The run to the island of Juan Fernandez— An ab-
sentee king — At Robinson Crusoe’s anchorage.

Acc gale had then sprung up, but the
wind was still fair, and I had only twenty-six
miles to run for Port Angosto, a dreary enough
place, where, however, I would find a safe harbor in
which to refit and stow cargo. I carried on sail to
make the harbor before dark, and she fairly flew
along, all covered with snow, which fell thick
and fast, till she looked like a white winter bird.
Between the storm-bursts I saw the headland of
my port, and was steering for it when a flaw of
wind caught the mainsail by the lee, jibed it over,
and dear! dear! how nearly was this the cause of
disaster; for the sheet parted and the boom un-
shipped, and it was then close upon night. I
worked till the perspiration poured from my body
to get things adjusted and in working order before
dark, and, above all, to get it done before the sloop
drove to leeward of the port of refuge. Even then
I did not get the boom shipped in its saddle. I
was at the entrance of the harbor before I could
aLe

A DEFECTIVE SHEET-ROPE 127

get this done, and it was time to haul her to or lose
the port; but in that condition, like a bird with
a broken wing, she made the haven. The accident
which so jeopardized my vessel and cargo came
of a defective sheet-rope, one made from sisal, a
treacherous fiber which has caused a deal of strong
language among sailors.

I did not run the Spray into the inner harbor of
Port Angosto, but came to inside a bed of kelp
under a steep bluff on the port hand going in. It
was an exceedingly snug nook, and to make doubly
sure of holding on here against all williwaws I
moored her with two anchors and secured her,
besides, by cables to trees. However, no wind
ever reached there except back flaws from the
mountains on the opposite side of the harbor.
There, as elsewhere in that region, the country was
made up of mountains. This was the place where
I was to refit and whence I was to sail direct, once
more, for Cape Pillar and the Pacific.

I remained at Port Angosto some days, busily
employed about the sloop. I stowed the tallow
from the deck to the hold, arranged my cabin in
better order, and took in a good supply of wood
and water. I also mended the sloop’s sails and rig-
ging, and fitted a jigger, which changed the rig to
a yawl, though I called the boat a sloop just the
same, the jigger being merely a temporary affair.

I never forgot, even at the busiest time of my
work there, to have my rifle by me ready for in-
stant use; for I was of necessity within range of
savages, and I had seen Fuegian canoes at this
place when I anchored in the port, farther down

128 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

the reach, on the first trip through the strait. I
think it was on the second day, while I was busily
employed about decks, that I heard the swish of
something through the air close by my ear, and
heard a “zip”-like sound in the water, but saw
nothing. Presently, however, I suspected that it
was an arrow of some sort, for just then one pass-
ing not far from me struck the mainmast, where it
stuck fast, vibrating from the shock — a Fuegian
autograph. A savage was somewhere near, there
eould be no doubt about that. I did not know but
he might be shooting at me, with a view to getting
my sloop and her eargo; and so I threw up my old
Martini-Henry, the rifle that kept on shooting, and
the first shot uncovered three Fuegians, who scam-
pered from a clump of bushes where they had been
concealed, and made over the hills. I fired away a
good many cartridges, aiming under their feet to
encourage their climbing. My dear old gun woke
up the hills, and at every report all three of the
savages jumped as if shot; but they kept on, and
put Fuego real estate between themselves and the
Spray as fast as their legs could carry them. I
took eare then, more than ever before, that all my
firearms should be in order and that a supply of
ammunition should always be ready at hand. But
the savages did not return, and although I put
taeks on deck every night, I never discovered that
eny more visitors came, and I had only to sweep
the deck of tacks carefully every morning after.
As the days went by, the season became more
favorable for a chance to clear the strait with a
fair wind, and so I made up my mind after six

THE “SPRAY” A TARGET FOR FUEGIAN ARROWS 129

* The first shot uncovered three Fuegians.”

attempts, being driven baek each time, to be in
no further haste to sail. The bad weather on my
last return to Port Angosto for shelter brought the
Chilean gunboat Condor and the Argentine cruiser

130 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

Azopardo into port. As soon as the latter came to
anchor, Captain Mascarella, the commander, sent a
boat to the Spray with the message that he would
take me in tow for Sandy Point if I would give up
the voyage and return — the thing farthest from
my mind. The officers of the Azopardo told me
that, coming up the strait after the Spray on her
first passage through, they saw Black Pedro and
learned that he had visited me. The Azopardo,
being a foreign man-of-war, had no right to arrest
the Fuegian outlaw, but her captain blamed me for
not shooting the rascal when he came to my sloop.

I procured some cordage and other small sup-
plies from these vessels, and the officers of each of
them mustered a supply of warm flannels, of which
Iwas most in need. With these additions to my
outfit, and with the vessel in good trim, though
somewhat deeply laden, I was well prepared for
another bout with the Southern, misnamed Pacific,
Ocean.

In the first week in April southeast winds, such
as appear about Cape Horn in the fall and winter
seasons, bringing better weather than that experi-
enced in the summer, began to disturb the upper
clouds; a little more patience, and the time would
come for sailing with a fair wind.

At Port Angosto I met Professor Dusen of the
Swedish scientific expedition to South America
and the Pacific Islands. The professor was camped
by the side of a brook at the head of the harbor,
where there were many varieties of moss, in which
he was interested, and where the water was, as his
Argentine cook said, “muy rico” The professor

THE “SPRAY” AT PORT ANGOSTO 131

had three well-armed Argentines along in his eamp
to fight savages. They seemed disgusted when I
filled water at a small stream near the vessel, slight-
ing their adviee to go farther up to the greater
brook, where it was “ muy rico.” But they were all
fine fellows, though it was a wonder that they did
not all die of rheumatic pains from living on wet
ground.

Of all the little haps and mishaps to the Spray at
Port Angosto, of the many attempts to put to sea,
and of each return for shelter, it is not my purpose
to speak. Of hindrances there were many to keep
her back, but on the thirteenth day of April, and for
the seventh and last time, she weighed anchor from
that port. Difficulties, however, multiplied all
about in so strange a manner that had I been given
to superstitious fears I should not have persisted
in sailing on a thirteenth day, notwithstanding
that a fair wind blew in the offing. Many of the
incidents were ludicrous. When I found myself,
for instance, disentangling the sloop’s mast from
the branches of a tree after she had drifted three
times around a small island, against my will, it
seemed more than one’s nerves could bear, and I
had to speak about it, so I thought, or die of lock-
jaw, and I apostrophized the Spray as an impatient
farmer might his horse or his ox. “Did pt you
know, cried I—* did wt you know that you
could n't climb a tree?" But the poor old Spray
had essayed, and successfully too, nearly every-
thing else in the Strait of Magellan, and my heart
softened toward her when I thought of what she
had gone through. Moreover, she had discovered

132 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

an island. On the charts this one that she had
sailed around was traced as a point of land. I
named it Alan Errie Island, after a worthy literary
friend whom I had met in strange by-places, and I
put up a sign, “ Keep off the grass," which, as dis-
coverer, was within my rights.

Now at last the Spray carried me free of Tierra
del Fuego. If by a close shave only, still she car-
ried me clear, though her boom aetually hit the
beacon rocks to leeward as she lugged on sail to
clear the point. The thing was done on the 13th
of April 1896. But a close shave and a narrow
escape were nothing new to the Spray.

The waves doffed their white caps beautifully to
her in the strait that day before the southeast
wind, the first true winter breeze of the Season
from that quarter, and here she was out on the
first of it, with every prospect of clearing Cape
Pillar before it should shift. So it turned out;
the wind blew hard, as it always blows about Cape
Horn, but she had cleared the great tide-race off
Cape Pillar and the Evangelistas, the outermost
rocks of all, before the change eame. I remained
at the helm, humoring my vessel in the cross Seas,
for it was rough, and I did not dare to let her take
a Straight course. It was necessary to change her
course in the combing seas, to meet them with
what skill I could when they rolled up ahead, and
to keep off when they came up abeam.

On the following morning, April 14, only the
tops of the highest mountains were in sight, and
the Spray, making good headway on a northwest
course, soon sank these out of sight. “Hurrah for

AGAIN IN THE OPEN PACIFIC 133

the Spray !” I shouted to seals, sea-gulls, and pen-
guins; for there were no other living ereatures
about, and she had weathered all the dangers of
Cape Horn. Moreover, she had on her voyage
round the Horn salved à eargo of which she had
not jettisoned a pound. And why should not one
rejoiee also in the main chanee coming so of itself ?
I shook out a reef, and set the whole jib, for,
having sea-room, I could square away two points.
This brought the sea more on her quarter, and she
was the wholesomer under a press of sail. Occa-
sionally an old southwest sea, rolling up, combed
athwart her, but did no harm. The wind freshened
as the sun rose half-mast or more, and the air, a bit
ehilly in the morning, softened later in the day;
but I gave little thought to such things as these.
One wave, in the evening, larger than others that
had threatened all day,— one sueh as sailors eall
* fine-weather seas,"— broke over the sloop fore
and aft. It washed over me at the helm, the last
that swept over the Spray off Cape Horn. It
seemed to wash away old regrets. All my troubles
were now astern; summer was ahead; all the world
was again before me. The wind was even liter-
ally fair. My “trick” at the wheel was now up,
and it was 5 P.M. I had stood at the helm since
eleven o’clock the morning before, or thirty hours.
Then was the time to uncover my head, for I
sailed alone with God. The vast ocean was again
around me, and the horizon was unbroken by land.
A few days later the Spray was under full sail, and
I saw her for the first time with a jigger spread.
This was indeed a small incident, but it was the

134 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

incident following a triumph. The wind was still
southwest, but it had moderated, and roaring seas
had turned to gossiping waves that rippled and
pattered against her sides as she rolled among
them, delighted with their story. Rapid changes
went on, those days, in things all about while she
headed for the tropies. New species of birds came
around; albatrosses fell back and became searcer
and scarcer; lighter gulls came in their stead, and
pecked for crumbs in the sloop's wake.

On the tenth day from Cape Pillar a shark came
along, the first of its kind on this part of the voy-
age to get into trouble. I harpooned him and took
out his ugly jaws. I had not till then felt inclined
to take the life of any animal, but when John
Shark hove in sight my sympathy flew to the
winds. It is a fact that in Magellan I let pass
many dueks that would have made a good stew,
for I had no mind in the lonesome strait to take
the life of any living thing.

From Cape Pillar I steered for Juan Fernandez,
and on the 26th of April, fifteen days out, made
that historie island right ahead.

The blue hills of Juan Fernandez, high among
the clouds, could be seen about thirty miles off.
À thousand emotions thrilled me when I saw the
island, and I bowed my head to the deck. We
may mock the Oriental salaam, but for my part I
could find no other way of expressing myself.

The wind being light through the day, the Spray
did not reach the island till night. With what wind
there was to fill her sails she stood close in to shore
on the northeast side, where it fellcalm and remained

THE RUN TO JUAN FERNANDEZ 135

so all night. I saw the twinkling of a small light
farther along in a cove, and fired a gun, but got no
answer, and soon the light disappeared altogether.
I heard the sea booming against the cliffs all
night, and realized that the ocean swell was still

great, although from the deck
of my little ship it was appa-
rently small. From the ery of

animals in the hills, which pd urn
sounded fainter and fainter ~ *
through the night, I judged z

B š The Spray approaching
1
that a light eurrent was drift- Juan Fernandez, Rob~

ing the sloop from the land, imson Crusoe’s Island.
though she seemed all night

dangerously near the shore, for, the land being very
high, appearanees were deceptive.

Soon after daylight I saw a boat putting out
toward me. As it pulled near, it so happened that
I picked up my gun, which was on the deck, mean-
ing only to put it below; but the people in the
boat, seeing the piece in my hands, quickly turned
and pulled baek for shore, which was about four
miles distant. There were six rowers in her, and I
observed that they pulled with oars in oar-locks,

136 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

after the manner of trained seamen, and so I knew
they belonged to a civilized race; but their opinion
of me must have been anything but flattering
when they mistook my purpose with the gun and
pulled away with all their might. I made them
understand by signs, but not without difficulty,
that I did not intend to shoot, that I was simply
putting the piece in the cabin, and that I wished
them to return. When they understood my mean-
ing they came back and were soon on board.

One of the party, whom the rest called “king,”
spoke English; the others spoke Spanish. They
had all heard of the voyage of the Spray through
the papers of Valparaiso, and were hungry for
news concerning it. They told me of a war be-
tween Chile and the Argentine, which I had not
heard of when I was there. I had just visited both
countries, and I told them that according to the
latest reports, while I was in Chile, their own
island was sunk. (This same report that Juan
Fernandez had sunk was eurrent in Australia
when I arrived there three months later.)

I had already prepared a pot of coffee and a
plate of doughnuts, which, after some words of
civility, the islanders stood up to and discussed
with a will, after which they took the Spray in
tow of their boat and made toward the island
with her at the rate of a good three knots. The
man they called king took the helm, and with
whirling it up and down he so rattled the Spray
that I thought she would never carry herself
straight again. The others pulled away lustily
with their oars. The king, I soon learned, was

AT ROBINSON CRUSOES ANCHORAGE 137

king only by eourtesy. Having lived longer on
the island than any other man in the world,—
thirty years,— he was so dubbed. Juan Fernan-
dez was then under the administration of a gover-
nor of Swedish nobility, so I was told. I was also
told that his daughter could ride the wildest goat
on the island. The governor, at the time of my
visit, was away at Valparaiso with his family, to
place his children at school The king had been
away once for a year or two, and in Rio de Ja-
neiro had married a Brazilian woman who followed
his fortunes to the far-off island. He was himself
a Portuguese and a native of the Azores. He had
sailed in New Bedford whale-ships and had steered
a boat. All this I learned, and more too, before we
reached the anchorage. The sea-breeze, coming in
before long, filled the Spray’s sails, and the ex-
perienced Portuguese mariner piloted her to a safe
berth in the bay, where she was moored to a buoy
abreast the settlement.

CHAPTER XI

The islanders at Juan Fernandez entertained with Yankee dough-
nuts — The beauties of Robinson Crusoe's realm — The mountain
monument to Alexander Selkirk — Robinson Crusoe's eave— A
Stroll with the children of the island— Westward ho! with a
friendly gale —A month's free sailing with the Southern Cross
and the sun for guides — Sighting the Marquesas — Experience in
reekoning.

HE Spray being secured, the islanders returned

to the coffee and doughnuts, and I was more
than flattered when they did not slight my buns, as
the professor had done in the Strait of Magellan.
Between buns and doughnuts there was little
difference except in name. Both had been fried
in tallow, whieh was the strong point in both, for
there was nothing on the island fatter than a goat,
and a goat is but a lean beast, to make the best of
it. So with a view to business I hooked my steel-
yards to the boom at onee, ready to weigh out
tallow, there being no customs officer to say, “ Why
do you do so?” and before the sun went down the
islanders had learned the art of making buns and
doughnuts. I did not charge a high price for what
I sold, but the ancient and curious coins I got in
payment, some of them from the wreck of a galleon
sunk in the bay no one knows when, I sold after-
ward to antiquarians for more than face-value.
In this way I made a reasonable profit. I brought

138

BEAUTIES OF ROBINSON CRUSOES REALM 139

away money of all denominations from the island,
and nearly all there was, so far as I eould find
out.

Juan Fernandez, as a place of call, is a lovely
Spot. The hills are well wooded, the valleys fer-

The house of the king.

tile, and pouring down through many ravines are
streams of pure water. There are no serpents on
the island, and no wild beasts other than pigs and
goats, of which I saw a number, with possibly a
dog or two. The people lived without the use of
rum or beer of any sort. There was not a police
officer or a lawyer among them. The domestic
economy of the island was simplicity itself. The
fashions of Paris did not affect the inhabitants;
each dressed aecording to his own taste. Although
there was no doctor, the people were all healthy.

140 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

and the children were all beautiful. There were
about forty-five souls on the island all told. "The
adults were mostly from the mainland of South

Yeu:

Robinson Crusoe's cave.

America. One lady there, from Chile, who made a
flying-jib for the Spray, taking her pay in tallow,
would be ealled a belle at Newport. Blessed island
of Juan Fernandez! Why Alexander Selkirk ever
left you was more than I could make out.

A large ship which had arrived some time be-
fore, on fire, had been stranded at the head of the
bay, and as the sea smashed her to pieces on the
rocks, after the fire was drowned, the islanders
pieked up the timbers and utilized them in the

MONUMENT TO ALEXANDER SELKIRK 141

construction of houses, which naturally presented
a ship-like appearance. The house of the king of
Juan Fernandez, Manuel Carroza by name, besides
resembling the ark, wore a polished brass knocker
on its only door, which was painted green. In
front of this gorgeous entrance was a fiag-mast all
ataunto, and near it a smart whale-boat painted
red and blue, the delight of the king’s old age.

I of course made a pilgrimage to the old lookout
place at the top of the mountain, where Selkirk
spent many days peering into the distance for
the ship which came at last. From a tablet fixed
into the face of the rock I copied these words, in-
seribed in Arabie capitals:

IN MEMORY
OF
ALEXANDER SELKIRK,
MARINER,

A native of Largo, in the county of Fife, Seotland, who lived
on this island in complete solitude for four years and four
months. He was landed from the Cinque Ports galley, 96 tons,
18 guns, A. D. 1704, and was taken off in the Duke, privateer,
12th February, 1709. He died Lieutenant of H. M. S. Wey-
mouth, A. D. 1723,1 aged 47. This tablet is erected near Sel-
kirk’s lookout, by Commodore Powell and the officers of
H. M. S. Topaze, A. D. 1868.

The cave in which Selkirk dwelt while on the
island is at the head of the bay now called Robin-
1Mr. J. Cuthbert Hadden, in the “ Century Magazine” for July, 1899,

shows that the tablet is in error as to the year of Selkirk’s death. It
Should be 1721.

142 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

son Crusoe Bay. It is around a bold headland
west of the present anchorage and landing. Ships
have anchored there, but it affords a very indiffer-
ent berth. Both of these anchorages are exposed
to north winds, which, however, do not reach home
with much violence. The holding-ground being
good in the first-named bay to the eastward, the
anchorage there may be considered safe, although
the undertow at times makes it wild riding.

I visited Robinson Crusoe Bay in a boat, and
with some diffieulty landed through the surf near
the cave, which I entered. I found it dry and in-
habitable. It is located in a beautiful nook shel-
tered by high mountains from all the severe storms
that sweep over the island, which are not many;
for it lies near the limits of the trade-wind regions,
being in latitude 3539 S. "The island is about four-
teen miles in length, east and west, and eight miles
in width; its height is over three thousand feet.
Its distance from Chile, to which country it be-
longs, is about three hundred and forty miles.

Juan Fernandez was once a convict station. A
number of caves in which the prisoners were kept,
damp, unwholesome dens, are no longer in use, and
no more prisoners are sent to the island.

The pleasantest day I spent on the island, if not
the pleasantest on my whole voyage, was my last
day on shore,— but by no means because it was the
last,— when the children of the little community,
one and all, went out with me to gather wild fruits
for the voyage. We found quinees, peaches, and
figs, and the children gathered a basket of each.
It takes very little to please children, and these

A STROLL WITH THE CHILDREN 143

zo APP
^ AA Sec s Ç

ioe Pees
H ent! t $, -
Dees
rm 75
. S ^, —
e

OWE Z A
À — Š

< < = < N
Sie :

\ NIN ZI Z f
Y AS d
y V N M N i firana Fe GA OR

——

The man who called a cabra a goat.

little ones, never hearing a word in their lives
except Spanish, made the hills ring with mirth
at the sound of words in English. They asked
me the names of all manner of things on the island.
We came to a wild fig-tree loaded with fruit, of
which I gave them the English name. “ Figgies,
figgies!” they cried, while they picked till their
baskets were full. But when I told them that the

144 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

cabra they pointed out was only a goat, they
screamed with laughter, and rolled on the grass in
wild delight to think that a man had come to their
island who would call a cabra a goat.

The first child born on Juan Fernandez, I was
told, had become a beautiful woman and was now
a mother. Manuel Carroza and the good soul who
followed him here from Brazil had laid away their
only child, a girl, at the age of seven, in the little
churchyard on the point. In the same half-acre
were other mounds among the rough lava rocks,
some marking the burial-place of native-born chil-
dren, some the resting-places of seamen from pass-
ing ships, landed here to end days of sickness and
get into a sailors heaven.

The greatest drawback I saw in the island was
the want of.a school. A class there would neces-
sarily be small, but to some kind soul who loved
teaching and quietude life on Juan Fernandez
would, for a limited time, be one of delight.

On the morning of May 5, 1896, I sailed from
Juan Fernandez, having feasted on many things,
but on nothing sweeter than the adventure itself
of a visit to the home and to the very cave of Rob-
inson Orusoe. From the island the Spray bore away
to the north, passing the island of St. Felix before
she gained the trade-winds, which seemed slow in
reaching their limits.

If the trades were tardy, however, when they did
come they came with a bang, and made up for lost
time; and the Spray, under reefs, sometimes one,
sometimes two, flew before a gale for a great many
days, with a bone in her mouth, toward the Mar-

A MONTH'S FREE SAILING 145

quesas, in the west, which she made on the forty-
third day out, and still kept on sailing. My time
was all taken up those days — not by standing at
the helm; no man, I think, could stand or sit and
Steer a vessel round the world: I did better than
that; for I sat and read my books, mended my
clothes, or cooked my meals and ate them in peace.
I had already found that it was not good to be
alone, and so I made companionship with what
there was around me, sometimes with the universe
and sometimes with my own insignificant self; but
my books were always my friends, let fail all else.
Nothing eould be easier or more restful than my
voyage in the trade-winds.

I sailed with a free wind day after day, marking
the position of my ship on the chart with consid-
erable precision; but this was done by intuition, I
think, more than by slavish ealeulations. For one
whole month my vessel held her course true; I had
not, the while, so much as a light in the binnacte.
The Southern Cross I saw every night abeam. The
sun every morning eame up astern; every evening
it went down ahead. I wished for no other com-
pass to guide me, for these were true. If I doubted
my reckoning after a long time at sea I verified it
by reading the clock aloft made by the Great
Architect, and it was right.

There was no denying that the comical side of the
strange life appeared. I awoke, sometimes, to find
the sun already shining into my cabin. I heard
water rushing by, with only a thin plank between
me and the depths, and I said, “How is this?" But

it was all right; it was my ship on her course, sailing
10

146 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

as no other ship had ever sailed before in the world.
The rushing water along her side told me that she
was sailing at full speed. I knew that no human
hand was at the helm; I knew that all was well with
^the hands? forward, and that there was no
mutiny on board.

The phenomena of ocean meteorology were inter-
esting studies even here in the trade-winds. I
observed that about every seven days the wind
freshened and drew several points farther than
usual from the direction of the pole; that is, it went
round from east-southeast to south-southeast, while
at the same time a heavy swell rolled up from the
southwest. All this indieated that gales were
going on in the anti-trades. The wind then hauled
day after day as it moderated, till it stood again at
the normal point, east-southeast. This is more or
less the constant state of the winter trades in lati-
tude 12° S., where I “ran down the longitude” for
weeks. The sun, we all know, is the creator of the
trade-winds and of the wind system over all the
earth. But ocean meteorology is, I think, the most
fascinating of all. From Juan Fernandez to the
Marquesas I experienced six changes of these great
palpitations of sea-winds and of the sea itself, the
effect of far-off gales. To know the laws that
govern the winds, and to know that you know
them, will give you an easy mind on your voyage
round the world; otherwise you may tremble at
the appearance of every cloud. What is true of
this in the trade-winds is much more so in the
variables, where changes run more to extremes.

To cross the Pacific Ocean, even under the most

SIGHTING THE MARQUESAS 147

favorable circumstances, brings you for many days
elose to nature, and you realize the vastness of the
sea. Slowly but surely the mark of my little ship's
course on the track-chart reached out on the ocean
and aeross it, while at her utmost speed she marked
with her keel still slowly the sea that carried her.
On the forty-third day from land,— a long time to
be at sea alone,— the sky being beautifully clear
and the moon being “in distance” with the sun, I
threw up my sextant for sights. I found from the
result of three observations, after long wrestling
with lunar tables, that her longitude by observa-
tion agreed within five miles of that by dead-
reckoning.

This was wonderful; both, however, might be in
error, but somehow I felt confident that both were
nearly true, and that in a few hours more I should
see land; and so it happened, for then I made the
island of Nukahiva, the southernmost of the Mar-
quesas group, clear-cut and lofty. The verified
longitude when abreast was somewhere between
the two reckonings; this was extraordinary. All
navigators will tell you that from one day to
another a ship may lose or gain more than five
miles in her sailing-account, and again, in the
matter of lunars, even expert lunarians are con-
sidered as doing clever work when they average
within eight miles of the truth.

I hope I am making it clear that I do not lay
claim to cleverness or to slavish calculations in
my reckonings. I think I have already stated that
I kept my longitude, at least, mostly by intuition.
A rotator log always towed astern, but so much

148 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

has to be allowed for currents and for drift, which
ihe log never shows, that it is only an approxima-
tion, after all, to be corrected by one's own judg-
ment from data of a thousand voyages; and even
then the master of the ship, if he be wise, eries out
for the lead and the lookout.

Unique was my experience in nautical astronomy
from the deck of the Spray —so much so that I
feel justified in briefly telling it here. The first set
of sights, just spoken of, put her many hundred
miles west of my reckoning by aecount. I knew
that this could not be correct. In about an hour's
time I took another set of observations with the
utmost care; the mean result of these was about
the same as that of the first set. I asked myself
why, with my boasted self-dependence, I had not
done at least better than this. Then I went in
search of a discrepancy in the tables, and I found
it. In the tables I found that the column of figures
from which I had got an important logarithm was
in error. It was a matter I could prove beyond a
doubt, and it made the difference as already stated.
The tables being corrected, I sailed on with self-
reliance unshaken, and with my tin clock fast
asleep. The result of these observations naturally
tickled my vanity, for I knew that it was some-
thing to stand on a great ship’s deck and with two
assistants take lunar observations approximately
near the truth. As oneof the poorest of American
sailors, I was proud of the little achievement alone
on the sloop, even by chance though it may have
been.

I was en rapport now with my surroundings, and

EXPERIENCE IN RECKONING 149

was carried on a vast stream where I felt the buoy-
aney of His hand who made all the worlds. I real-
ized the mathematical truth of their motions, so
well known that astronomers compile tables of their
positions through the years and the days, and the
minutes of a day, with such precision that one com-
ing along over the sea even five years later may,
by their aid, find the standard time of any given
meridian on the earth.

To find local time is a simpler matter. The dif-
ference between local and standard time is longi-
tude expressed in time — four minutes, we all know,
representing one degree. This, briefly, is the prin-
ciple on which longitude is found independent of
chronometers. The work of the lunarian, though
seldom practised in these days of chronometers,
is beautifully edifying, and there is nothing in the
realm of navigation that lifts one’s heart up more
in adoration.

CHAPTER XII

Seventy-two days without a port— Whales and birds—A peep into
the Spray's galley— Flying-fish for breakfast— A welcome at
Apia—A visit from Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson — At Vailima
—Samoan hospitality— Arrested for fast riding—An amusing
merry-go-round— Teachers and pupils of Papauta College — At
ihe merey of sea-nymphs.

O be alone forty-three days would seem a long
time, but in reality, even here, winged mo-
ments flew lightly by, and instead of my hauling
in for Nukahiva, which I could have made as well as
not, I kept on for Samoa, where I wished to make
my next landing. This occupied twenty-nine days
more, making seventy-two days in all. I was not
distressed in any way during that time. There
was no end of companionship; the very coral reefs
kept me company, or gave me no time to feel
lonely, which is the same thing, and there were
many of them now in my course to Samoa.

First among the incidents of the voyage from
Juan Fernandez to Samoa (which were not many)
was a narrow escape from collision with a great
whale that was absent-mindedly plowing the ocean
at night while I was below. The noise from his
startled snort and the commotion he made in the
sea, as he turned to clear my vessel, brought me on

deck in time to catch a wetting from the water he
150

WHALES AND BIRDS 151

threw up with his flukes. The monster was appa-
rently frightened. He headed quickly for the east;
I kept on going west. Soon another whale passed,
evidently a companion, following in its wake. I

Meeting with the whale.

saw no more on this part of the voyage, nor did I
wish to.

Hungry sharks came about the vessel often
when she neared islands or coral reefs. I own to a
satisfaction in shooting them as one would a tiger.
Sharks, after all, are the tigers of the sea. No-
thing is more dreadful to the mind of a sailor, I
think, than a possible encounter with a hungry
shark.

A number of birds were always about; occa-
sionally one poised on the mast to look the Spray
over, wondering, perhaps, at her odd wings, for
she now wore her Fuego mainsail, which, like

152 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

Joseph's eoat, was made of many pieces. Ships
are less common on the Southern seas than for-
merly. I saw not one in the many days erossing
the Pacific.

My diet on these long passages usually consisted
of potatoes and salt cod and biscuits, which I made
two or three times a week. I had always plenty of
coffee, tea, sugar, and flour. I carried usually a
good supply of potatoes, but before reaching Samoa
I had a mishap which left me destitute of this
highly prized sailors’ luxury. Through meeting at
Juan Fernandez the Yankee Portuguese named
Manuel Carroza, who nearly traded me out of my
boots, I ran out of potatoes in mid-ocean, and was
wretched thereafter. I prided myself on being
something of a trader; but this Portuguese from
the Azores by way of New Bedford, who gave me
new potatoes for the older ones I had got from the
Colombia, a bushel or more of the best, left me no
ground for boasting. He wanted mine, he said, “for
changee the seed? When I got to sea I found that
his tubers were rank and unedible, and full of fine
yellow streaks of repulsive appearance. I tied the
sack up and returned to the few left of my old stock,
thinking that maybe when I got right hungry the
island potatoes would improve in flavor. Three
weeks later I opened the bag again, and out flew
millions of winged insects! Manuel’s potatoes had
all turned to moths. I tied them up quickly and
threw all into the sea.

Manuel had a large crop of potatoes on hand,
and as a hint to whalemen, who are always eager
to buy vegetables, he wished me to report whales

FLYING FISH FOR BREAKFAST 153

off the island of Juan Fernandez, which I have
already done, and big ones at that, but they were
a long way off.

Taking things by and large, as sailors say, I got
on fairly well in the matter of provisions even on
the long voyage across the Pacifie. I found always
some small stores to help the fare of luxuries;
what I lacked of fresh meat was made up in fresh
fish, at least while in the trade-winds, where flying-
fish erossing on the wing at night would hit the
sails and fall on deck, sometimes two or three of
them, sometimes a dozen. Every morning except
when the moon was large I got a bountiful supply
by merely picking them up from the lee scuppers.
All tinned meats went begging.

On the 16th of July, after considerable care and
some skill and hard work, the Spray cast anchor at
Apia, in the kingdom of Samoa, about noon. My
vessel being moored, I spread an awning, and in-
stead of going at onee on shore I sat under it till
late in the evening, listening with delight to the
musical voices of the Samoan men and women.

À eanoe coming down the harbor, with three
young women in it, rested her paddles abreast the
sloop. One of the fair crew, hailing with the naive
salutation, “Talofa lee” (“Love to you, chief"),
asked:

* Schoon come Melike ?

“Love to you,” I answered, and said, “ Yes.”

* You man come ‘lone? ?

Again I answered, ‘‘Yes.”

«T don’t believe that. You had other mans, and
you eat ’em.”

154 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

At this sally the others laughed. “ What for
you eome long way ?? they asked.

“ To hear you ladies sing,” I replied.

“Oh, talofa lee!" they all cried, and sang on.
Their voiees filled the air with musie that rolled

Petty a)

——(

S š
LoT Thomas Focany
BN ae

First exchange of courtesies in Samoa.

across to the grove of tall palms on the other side
of the harbor and back. Soon after this six young
men came down in the United States consul-
general’s boat, singing in parts and beating time
with their oars. In my interview with them I
came off better than with the damsels in the canoe.
They bore an invitation from General Churchill for
me to come and dine at the consulate. There was

A VISIT FROM MRS. ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 155

a lady's hand in things about the consulate at
Samoa. Mrs. Churchill picked the crew for the
generals boat, and saw to it that they wore a
smart uniform and that they could sing the Samoan
boatsong, which in the first week Mrs. Churchill
herself could sing like a native girl.

Next morning bright and early Mrs. Robert
Louis Stevenson eame to the Spray and invited
me to Vailima the following day. I was of course
thrilled when I found myself, after so many days
of adventure, face to face with this bright woman,
so lately the companion of the author who had
delighted me on the voyage. The kindly eyes, that
looked me through and through, sparkled when we
compared notes of adventure. I marveled at some
of her experiences and escapes. She told me that,
along with her husband, she had voyaged in all
manner of rickety craft among the islands of the
Pacific, reflectively adding, “Our tastes were
similar.”

Following the subject of voyages, she gave me
the four beautiful volumes of sailing directories for
the Mediterranean, writing on the fly-leaf of the
first:

To CAPTAIN SLOCUM. These volumes have been read and
re-read many times by my husband, and I am very sure that he
would be pleased that they should be passed on to the sort of
seafaring man that he liked above all others.

Fanny V. DE G. STEVENSON.

Mrs. Stevenson also gave me a great directory of
the Indian Ocean. It was not without a feeling of
reverential awe that I received the books so nearly

156 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

direet from the hand of Tusitala, “who sleeps in
the forest Aolele, the Spray will cherish your
eift.

The novelist’s stepson, Mr. Lloyd Osbourne,
walked through the Vailima mansion with me

Vailima, the home of Robert Louis Stevenson.

and bade me write my letters at the old desk. I
thought it would be presumptuous to do that; it
was sufficient for me to enter the hall on the floor
of which the “Writer of Tales,” according to the
Samoan custom, was wont to sit.

Coming through the main street of Apia one
day, with my hosts, all bound for the Spray, Mrs.
Stevenson on horseback, I walking by her side,
and Mr. and Mrs. Osbourne close in our wake on
bicycles, at a sudden turn in the road we found
ourselves mixed with a remarkable native proces-
sion, with a somewhat primitive band of music, in
front of us, while behind was a festival or a funeral,
we could not tell which. Several of the stoutest
men carried bales and bundles on poles. Some

SAMOAN HOSPITALITY 157

were evidently bales of tapa-cloth. The burden of
one set of poles, heavier than the rest, however,
was not so easily made out. My curiosity was
whetted to know whether it was a roast pig or
something of a gruesome nature, and I inquired
about it. *I don't know," said Mrs. Stevenson,
“whether this is a wedding or a funeral. What-
ever it is, though, captain, our plaee seems to be at
the head of it.”

The Spray being in the stream, we boarded her
from the beach abreast, in the little razeed Glou-
eester dory, which had been painted a smart green.
Our eombined weight loaded it gunwale to the
water, and I was obliged to steer with great care
to avoid swamping. The adventure pleased Mrs.
Stevenson greatly, and as we paddled along she
sang, “They went to sea in a pea-green boat.” I
could understand her saying of her husband and
herself, * Our tastes were similar.”

As I sailed farther from the center of civilization
I heard less and less of what would and what
would not pay. Mrs. Stevenson, in speaking of
my voyage, did not once ask me what I would
make out of it. When I came to a Samoan village,
the chief did not ask the price of gin, or say, “ How
much will you pay for roast pig?” but, “ Dollar,
dollar,? said he; ' white man know only dollar."

“Never mind dollar. The tapo has prepared ava;
let us drink and rejoice” The tapo is the virgin
hostess of the village; in this instance it was Taloa,
daughter of the chief. “Our taro is good; let us
eat. On the tree there is fruit. Let the day go
by; why should we mourn over that? ‘There are

158 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

millions of days coming. "The breadfruit is yellow
in the sun, and from the cloth-tree is Taloa’s gown.
Our house, which is good, cost but the labor of
building it, and there is no lock on the door."

While the days go thus in these Southern islands
we at the North are struggling for the bare necessi-
ties of life.

For food the islanders have only to put out their
hand and take what nature has provided for them ;
if they plant a banana-tree, their only care after-
ward is to see that too many trees do not grow.
They have great reason to love their country and
to fear the white man's yoke, for once harnessed to |
the plow, their life would no longer be a poem.

The chief of the village of Caini, who was a tall
and dignifed Tonga man, could be approached
only through an interpreter and talking man. It
was perfectly natural for him to inquire the
object of my visit, and I was sincere when I told
him that my reason for casting anchor in Samoa
was to see their fine men, and fine women, too.
After a considerable pause the chief said: “The
captain has come a long way to see so little; but,”
he added, “the tapo must sit nearer the captain.”
“Yack,” said Taloa, who had so nearly learned
to say yes in English, and suiting the action to
the word, she hitched a peg nearer, all hands
sitting in a circle upon mats. I was no less
taken with the chiefs eloquence than delighted
with the simplicity of all he said.. About him
there was nothing pompous; he might have been
taken for a great scholar or statesman, the least
assuming of the men I met on the voyage. As for

ARRESTED FOR FAST RIDING 159

Taloa, a sort of Queen of the May, and the other
tapo girls, well, it is wise to learn as soon as possi-
ble the manners and customs of these hospitable
people, and meanwhile not to mistake for over-
familiarity that which is intended as honor to a
guest. Iwas fortunate in my travels in the islands,
and saw nothing to shake one's faith in native
virtue.

To the uneonventional mind the punctilious eti-
quette of Samoa is perhaps a little painful. For
instance, I found that in partaking of ava, the
social bowl, I was supposed to toss a little of the
beverage over my shoulder, or pretend to do so,
and say, “ Let the gods drink," and then drink it
all myself; and the dish, invariably à eocoanut-
shell, being empty, I might not pass it politely as
we would do, but politely throw it twirling across
the mats at the tapo.

My most grievous mistake while at the islands
was made on a nag, which, inspired by a bit of
good road, must needs break into a smart trot
through a village. I was instantly hailed by the
chiefs deputy, who in an angry voice brought
me to a halt. Perceiving that I was in trouble,
I made signs for pardon, the safest thing to do,
though I did not know what offense I had
eommitted. My interpreter coming up, however,
put me right, but not until a long palaver
had ensued. The deputy’s hail, liberally trans-
lated, was: “Ahoy, there, on the frantic steed!
Know you not that it is against the law to ride
thus through the village of our fathers?” I made
what apologies I could, and offered to dismount

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AN AMUSING MERRY-GO-ROUND 161

and, like my servant, lead my nag by the bridle.
This, the interpreter told me, would also be a
grievous wrong, and so I again begged for pardon.
I was summoned to appear before a chief; but my
interpreter, being a wit as well as a bit of a rogue,
explained that I was myself something of a chief,
and should not be detained, being on à most im-
portant mission. In my own behalf I could only
say that I was a stranger, but, pleading all this, 1
knew I still deserved to be roasted, at which the
chief showed a fine row of teeth and seemed
pleased, but allowed me to pass on.

The chief of the Tongas and his family at Caini,
returning my visit, brought presents of tapa-cloth
and fruits. Taloa, the princess, brought a bottle
of eoeoanut-oil for my hair, which another man
might have regarded as coming late.

It was impossible to entertain on the Spray after
the royal manner in which I had been received by
the chief. His fare had included all that the land
could afford, fruits, fowl, fishes, and flesh, a hog
having been roasted whole. I set before them
boiled salt pork and salt beef, with which I was
well supplied, and in the evening took them all to
a new amusement in the town, a rocking-horse
merry-go-round, which they called a “kee-kee,”
meaning theater; and in a spirit of justice they
pulled off the horses’ tails, for the proprietors of
the show, two hard-fisted countrymen of mine, I
grieve to say, unceremoniously hustled them off
for a new set, almost at the first spin. I was not a
little proud of my Tonga friends; the chief, finest

of them all, carried a portentous club. As for the
12

162 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

theater, through the greed of the proprietors it was
becoming unpopular, and the representatives of
the three great powers, in want of laws which they
could enforce, adopted a vigorous foreign policy,
taxing it twenty-five per cent. on the gate-money.
This was considered a great stroke of legislative
reform !

It was the fashion of the native visitors to the
Spray to come over the bows, where they could
reach the head-gear and climb aboard with ease,
and on going ashore to jump off the stern and
swim away; nothing could have been more de-
lightfully simple. The modest natives wore lava-
lava bathing-dresses, a native cloth from the bark
of the mulberry-tree, and they did no harm to the
Spray. In summer-land Samoa their coming and
going was only a merry every-day scene.

One day the head teachers of Papauta College,
Miss Schultze and Miss Moore, came on board with
their ninety-seven young women students. They
were all dressed in white, and each wore a red rose,
and of course came in boats or canoes in the cold-
climate style. A merrier bevy of girls it would be
difficult to find. As soon as they got on deck, by
request of one of the teachers, they sang “The
Watch on the Rhine,” which I had never heard be-
fore. “And now,” said they all, “let ’s up anchor
and away.” But I had no inclination to sail from
Samoa so soon. On leaving the Spray these ac-
complished young women each seized a palm-
branch or paddle, or whatever else would serve the
purpose, and literally paddled her own canoe.
Each could have swum as readily, and would

AT THE MERCY OF SEA-NYMPHS 163

have done so, I dare say, had it not been for
the holiday muslin.

It was not uneommon at Apia to see a young
woman swimming alongside a small canoe with a
passenger for the Spray. Mr. Trood, an old Eton
boy, came in this manner to see me, and he ex-
claimed, “ Was ever king ferried in such state?”
Then, suiting his action to the sentiment, he gave
the damsel pieces of silver till the natives watch-
ing on shore yelled with envy. My own canoe, a
small dugout, one day when it had rolled over with
me, was seized by a party of fair bathers, and
before I could get my breath, almost, was towed
around and around the Spray, while I sat in the
bottom of it, wondering what they would do next.
But in this case there were six of them, three on a
side, and I could not help myself. One of the
sprites, I remember, was a young English lady,
who made more sport of it than any of the others.

CHAPTER XIII

Samoan royalty— King Malietoa — Good-by to friends at Vailima —
Leaving Fiji to the south — Arrival at N eweastle, Australia —
The yachts of Sydney — A ducking on the Spray — Commodore
Foy presents the sloop with a new suit of sails — On to Melbourne
— À shark that proved to be valuable — A change of course —
The “ Rain of Blood” — In Tasmania.

A Apia I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. A.
Young, the father of the late Queen Margaret,
who was Queen of Manua from 1891 to 1895. Her
grandfather was an English sailor who mar-
ried a princess. Mr. Young is now the only sur-
vivor of the family, two of his children, the last of
them all, having been lost in an island trader which
a few months before had sailed, never to return.
Mr. Young was a Christian gentleman, and his
daughter Margaret was accomplished in graces
that would become any lady. It was with pain
that I saw in the newspapers a sensational account
of her life and death, taken evidently from a paper
in the supposed interest of a benevolent society,
but without foundation in fact. And the startling
head-lines saying, “ Queen Margaret of Manua is
dead,” could hardly be called news in 1898, the
queen having then been dead three years.

While hobnobbing, as it were, with royalty, I
called on the king himself, the late Malietoa. King

164

SAMOAN ROYALTY 165

Malietoa was a great ruler; he never got less than
forty-five dollars a month for the job, as he told
me himself, and this amount had lately been raised,
so that he could live on the fat of the land and not
any longer be called *'Tin-of-salmon Malietoa” by
graceless beach-combers.

As my interpreter and I entered the front door
of the palace, the king’s brother, who was viceroy,
sneaked in through a taro-pateh by the back way,
and sat cowering by the door while I told my story
to the king. Mr. W. of New York, a gentle-
man interested in missionary work, had charged
me, when I sailed, to give his remembrance to the
king of the Cannibal Islands, other islands of
course being meant; but the good King Malietoa,
notwithstanding that his people have not eaten a
missionary in a hundred years, received the mes-
sage himself, and seemed greatly pleased to hear
so directly from the publishers of the “ Missionary
Review,” and wished me to make his compli-
ments in return. His Majesty then excused him-
self, while I talked with his daughter, the beautiful
Faamu-Sami (a name signifying * To make the sea
burn”), and soon reappeared in the full-dress uni-
form of the German commander-in-chief, Emperor
William himself; for, stupidly enough, I had not
sent my credentials ahead that the king might be
in full regalia to receive me. Calling a few days
later to say good-by to Faamu-Sami, I saw King
Malietoa for the last time.

Of the landmarks in the pleasant town of Apia,
my memory rests first on the little school just back
of the London Missionary Society coffee-house and

166 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

reading-rooms, where Mrs. Bell taught English to
about a hundred native ehildren, boys and girls.
Brighter children you will not find anywhere.
“Now, children,” said Mrs. Bell, when I called
one day, “let us show the captain that we know
something about the Cape Horn he passed in the
Spray,” at which a lad of nine or ten years stepped
nimbly forward and read Basil Hall’s fine descrip-
tion of the great cape, and read it well. He after-
ward copied the essay for me in a clear hand.
Calling to say good-by to my friends at Vailima,
I met Mrs. Stevenson in her Panama hat, and
went over the estate with her. Men were at work
clearing the land, and to one of them she gave an
order to eut a couple of bamboo-trees for the
Spray from a clump she had planted four years
before, and which had grown to the height of sixty
feet. I used them for spare spars, and the butt of
one made a serviceable jib-boom on the homeward
voyage. I had then only to take ava with the
family and be ready for sea. This ceremony, im-
portant among Samoans, was conducted after the
native fashion. A Triton horn was sounded to
let us know when the beverage was ready, and in
response we all clapped hands. The bout being in
honor of the Spray, it was my turn first, after the
eustom of the country, to spill a little over my
shoulder; but having forgotten the Samoan for
“Let the gods drink,” I repeated the equivalent in
Russian and Chinook, as I remembered a word in
each, whereupon Mr. Osbourne pronounced me a
confirmed Samoan. Then I said * Tofah !"? to my
good friends of Samoa, and all wishing the Spray

LEAVING FIJI TO THE SOUTH 167

bon voyage, she stood out of the harbor August 20,
1896, and continued on her course. A sense of
loneliness seized upon me as the islands faded
astern, and as a remedy for it I crowded on sail
for lovely Australia, which was not a strange land
to me; but for long days in my dreams Vailima
stood before the prow.

The Spray had barely cleared the islands vehe a
sudden burst of the trades brought her down to
close reefs, and she reeled off one hundred and
eighty-four miles the first day, of which I counted
forty miles of current in her favor. Finding a
rough sea, I swung her off free and sailed north
of the Horn Islands, also north of Fiji instead of
south, as I had intended, and coasted down the west
side of the archipelago. Thence I sailed direct for
New South Wales, passing south of New Caledonia,
and arrived at Newcastle after a passage of forty-
two days, mostly of storms and gales.

One partieularly severe gale encountered near
New Caledonia foundered the American clipper-
ship Patrician farther south. Again, nearer the
coast of Australia, when, however, I was not aware
that the gale was extraordinary, a French mail-
steamer from New Caledonia for Sydney, blown
considerably out of her course, on her arrival re-
ported it an awful storm, and to inquiring friends
said: ^Oh, my! we don't know what has become
of the little sloop Spray. We saw her in the thick
of the storm.” The Spray was all right, lying to
like a duck. She was under a goose's wing mainsail,
and had had a dry deck while the passengers on
the steamer, I heard later, were up to their knees

168 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

in waterin the saloon. When their ship arrived at
Sydney they gave the captain a purse of gold for
his skill and seamanship in bringing them safe into
port. The captain of the Spray got nothing of this
sort. In this gale I made the land about Seal
Rocks, where the steamship Catherton, with many
lives, was lost a short time before. I was many
hours off the rocks, beating back and forth, but
weathered them at last.

I arrived at Neweastle in the teeth of a gale of
wind. lt was a stormy season. The government
pilot, Captain Cumming, met me at the harbor bar,
and with the assistance of a steamer carried my ves-
sel to a safe berth. Many visitors came on board,
the first being the United States consul, Mr. Brown.
Nothing was too good for the Spray here. Ali
government dues were remitted, and after I had
rested a few days a port pilot with a tug carried
her to sea again, and she made along the coast
toward the harbor of Sydney, where she arrived on
the following day, October 10, 1896.

I eame to in a snug cove near Manly for the
night, the Sydney harbor police-boat giving me a
pluck into anchorage while they gathered data
from an old scrap-book of mine, which seemed to
interest them. Nothing escapes the vigilance of
the New South Wales police; their reputation is
known the world over. They made a shrewd guess
that I could give them some useful information,
and they were the first to meet me. Some one said
they came to arrest me, and — well, let it go at that.

Summer was approaching, and the harbor of
Sydney was blooming with yachts. Some of them

A DUCKING ON THE SPRAY 169

The accident at Sydney.

eame down to the weather-beaten Spray and sailed
round her at Shelcote, where she took a berth for a
few days. At Sydney I was at once among friends.

170 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

The Spray remained at the various watering-places
in the great port for several weeks, and was visited
by many agreeable people, frequently by officers of
H. M. S. Orlando and their friends. Captain Fisher,
the commander, with a party of young ladies from
the city and gentlemen belonging to his ship, came
one day to pay me a visit in the midst of a deluge
of rain. I never saw it rain harder even in Aus-
tralia. But they were out for fun, and rain could
not dampen their feelings, however hard it poured.
But, as ill luck would have it, a young gentleman
of another party on board, in the full uniform
of a very great yacht club, with brass buttons
enough to sink him, stepping quickly to get out of
the wet, tumbled holus-bolus, head and heels, into
à barrel of water I had been coopering, and being
à Short man, was soon out of sight, and nearly
drowned before he was rescued. It was the nearest
to a casualty on the Spray in her whole course, so
far as I know. The young man having come on
board with compliments made the mishap most
embarrassing. It had been decided by his club
that the Spray could not be officially recognized,
for the reason that she brought no letters from
yacht-clubs in America, and so I say it seemed all
the more embarrassing and strange that I should
have caught at least one of the members, in a bar-
rel, and, too, when I was not fishing for yachtsmen.

The typical Sydney boat is a handy sloop of
great beam and enormous sail-carrying power; but
a capsize is not uncommon, for they earry sail like
vikings. In Sydney I saw all manner of craft,
from the smart steam-launch and sailing-cutter to

A NEW SUIT OF SAILS 171

the smaller sloop and canoe pleasuring on the bay.
Everybody owned a boat. If a boy in Australia
has not the means to buy him a boat he builds one,
and it is usually one not to be ashamed of. The
Spray shed her Joseph’s coat, the Fuego mainsail,
in Sydney, and wearing a new suit, the handsome
present of Commodore Foy, she was flagship of the
Johnstone’s Bay Flying Squadron when the cir-
cumnavigators of Sydney harbor sailed in their
annual regatta. They “recognized” the Spray as
belonging to “a elub of her own,” and with more
Australian sentiment than fastidiousness gave her
eredit for her record.

Time flew fast those days in Australia, and it
was December 6, 1896, when the Spray sailed from
Sydney. My intention was now to sail around
Cape Leeuwin direct for Mauritius on my way
home, and so I coasted along toward Bass Strait in
that direction.

There was little to report on this part of the
voyage, except changeable winds, “ busters,” and
rough seas. The 12th of December, however, was
an exceptional day, with a fine coast wind, north-
east. The Spray early in the morning passed
Twofold Bay and later Cape Bundooro in a smooth
sea with land close aboard. The lighthouse on the
cape dipped a flag to the Spray’s flag, and children
on the balconies of a cottage near the shore waved
handkerchiefs as she passed by. There were only
a few people all told on the shore, but the scene
was a happy one. I saw festoons of evergreen in
token of Christmas, near at hand. I saluted the
merrymakers, wishing them a “ Merry Christmas.”

172 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

and could hear them say, “I wish you the
same.”

From Cape Bundooro I passed by Cliff Island in
Bass Strait, and exchanged signals with the light-
keepers while the Spray worked up under the
island. The wind howled that day while the sea
broke over their rocky home.

A few days later, December 17, the Spray came
in close under Wilson’s Promontory, again seek-
ing shelter. The keeper of the light at that sta-
tion, Mr. J. Clark, came on board and gave me
directions for Waterloo Bay, about three miles to
leeward, for which I bore up at once, finding good
anchorage there in a sandy cove protected from all
westerly and northerly winds.

Anchored here was the ketch Secret, a fisherman,
and the Mary of Sydney, a steam ferry-boat fitted
for whaling. The captain of the Mary was a genius,
and an Australian genius at that, and smart. His
crew, from a sawmill up the coast, had not one of
them seen a live whale when they shipped; but
they were boatmen after an Australian’s own heart,
and the captain had told them that to kill a whale
was no more than to kill a rabbit. They believed
him, and that settled it. As luck would have it,
the very first one they saw on their cruise, although
an ugly humpback, was a dead whale in no time,
Captain Young, the master of the Mary, killing
the monster at a single thrust of a harpoon. It
was taken in tow for Sydney, where they put it on
exhibition. Nothing but whales interested the
crew of the gallant Mary, and they spent most of
their time here gathering fuel along shore for a

ON TO MELBOURNE 173

eruise on the grounds off Tasmania. Whenever the
word “whale” was mentioned in the hearing of
these men their eyes glistened with excitement.

Captain Slocum working the Spray out of the Yarrow River,
a part of Melbourne harbor.

We spent three days in the quiet cove, listening
to the wind outside. Meanwhile Captain Young
and I explored the shores, visited abandoned
miners! pits, and prospected for gold ourselves.

Our vessels, parting company the morning they
sailed, stood away like sea-birds each on its own
course. The wind for a few days was moderate,

174 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

and, with unusual luck of fine weather, the Spray
made Melbourne Heads on the 22d of December,
and, taken in tow by the steam-tug Racer, was
brought into port.

Christmas day was spent at a berth in the river
Yarrow, but I lost little time in shifting to St. Kilda,
where I spent nearly a month.

The Spray paid no port charges in Australia or
anywhere else on the voyage, except at Pernambuoo,
til she poked her nose into the eustom-house at
Melbourne, where she was charged tonnage dues; in
this instance, sixpence a ton on the gross. The col-
lector exacted six shillings and sixpence, taking off `
nothing for the fraction under thirteen tons, her
exact gross being 12.70 tons. I squared the matter
by charging people sixpence each for coming on
board, and when this business got dull I caught a
shark and charged them sixpence each to look at
that. The shark was twelve feet six inches in
length, and carried a progeny of twenty-six, not
one of them less than two feet in length. A slit
of a knife let them out in a canoe full of water,
which, changed constantly, kept them alive one
whole day. In less than an hour from the time I
heard of the ugly brute it was on deck and on exhi-
bition, with rather more than the amount of the
Spray’s tonnage dues already collected. Then I
hired a good Irishman, Tom Howard by name,—
who knew all about sharks, both on the land and
in the sea, and could talk about them,— to answer
questions and lecture. When I found that I could
not keep abreast of the questions I turned the re-
sponsibility over to him.

The shark on the deck of the Spray.

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176 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

Returning from the bank, where I had been to
deposit money early in the day, I found Howard
in the midst of a very excited crowd, telling imagi-
nary habits of the fish. It was a good show; the
people wished to see it, and it was my wish that
they should; but owing to his over-stimulated en-
thusiasm, I was obliged to let Howard resign. The
income from the show and the proceeds of the
tallow I had gathered in the Strait of Magellan,
the last of which I had disposed of to a Ger-
man soap-boiler at Samoa, put me in ample
funds.

January 24, 1897, found the Spray again in tow
of the tug Racer, leaving Hobson’s Bay after a
pleasant time in Melbourne and St. Kilda, which
had been protracted by a succession of southwest
winds that seemed never-ending.

In the summer months, that is, December, Jan-
uary, February, and sometimes March, east winds
are prevalent through Bass Strait and round
Cape Leeuwin; but owing to a vast amount of ice
drifting up from the Antarctic, this was all changed
now and emphasized with much bad weather,
so much so that I considered it impracticable to
pursue the course farther. Therefore, instead of
thrashing round cold and stormy Cape Leeuwin, I
decided to spend a pleasanter and more profitable
time in Tasmania, waiting for the season for favor-
able winds through Torres Strait, by way of the
Great Barrier Reef, the route I finally decided
on. To sail this course would be taking advan-
tage of anticyclones, which never fail, and besides
it would give me the chance to put foot on the

THE *RAIN OF BLOOD" 177

shores of Tasmania, round which I had sailed
years before.

I should mention that while I was at Melbourne
there occurred one of those extraordinary storms
somotimes called “rain of blood,” the first of the
kind in many years about Australia. The “blood”
eame from a fine briek-dust matter afloat in the
air from the deserts. A rain-storm setting in
brought down this dust simply as mud; it fell in
such quantities that a bucketful was collected from
the sloop’s awnings, which were spread at the
time. When the wind blew hard and I was obliged
to furl awnings, her sails, unprotected on the booms,
got mud-stained from clue to earing.

The phenomena of dust-storms, well understood
by scientists, are not uncommon on the coast of
Africa. Reaching some distance out over the sea,
they frequently cover the track of ships, as in the
ease of the one through which the Spray passed in
the earlier part of her voyage. Sailors no longer
regard them with superstitious fear, but our credu-
lous brothers on the land ery out “ Rain of blood !”
at the first splash of the awful mud.

The rip off Port Phillip Heads, a wild place, was
rough when the Spray entered Hobson’s Bay from
the sea, and was rougher when she stood out. But,
with sea-room and under sail, she made good
weather immediately after passing it. It was only
a few hours’ sail to Tasmania across the strait, the
wind being fair and blowing hard. I carried the
St. Kilda shark along, stuffed with hay, and dis-
posed of it to Professor Porter, the curator of the

Victoria Museum of Launceston, which is at the
12

"uojsog WOI f/n4dg ew Jo esanoo OJ 4reqo OYJ uo Suro€zjep “'@DIDI "jg 2? preoq uo

IN TASMANIA 179

head of the Tamar. For many a long day to come
may be seen there the shark of St. Kilda. Alas!
the good but mistaken people of St. Kilda, when
the illustrated journals with pictures of my shark
reached their news-stands, flew into a passion, and
swept all papers containing mention of fish into
the fire; for St. Kilda was a watering-place — and
the idea of a shark there! But my show went on.

The Spray was berthed on the beach at a small
jetty at Launceston while the tide driven in by the
gale that brought her up the river was unusually
high; and she lay there hard and fast, with not
enough water around her at any time after to wet
one’s feet till she was ready to sail; then, to float
her, the ground was dug from under her keel.

In this snug place I left her in charge of three
children, while I made journeys among the hills
and rested my bones, for the coming voyage, on
the moss-covered rocks at the gorge hard by, and
among the ferns I found wherever I went. My
vessel was well taken care of. I never returned
without finding that the decks had been washed
and that one of the children, my nearest neighbor’s
little girl from across the road, was at the gangway
attending to visitors, while the others, a brother
and sister, sold marine curios such as were in the
cargo, on “ship’s account.” They were a bright,
cheerful crew, and people came a long way to hear
them tell the story of the voyage, and of the mon-
sters of the deep “the eaptam had slain? I had
only to keep myself away to be a hero of the first
water; and it suited me very well to do so and
to rusticate in the forests and among the streams.

CHAPTER XIV

A testimonial from a lady — Cruising round Tasmania — The Skipper
delivers his first lecture on the voyage — Abundant provisions —
An inspection of the Spray for safety at Devonport — Again at
Sydney — Northward bound for Torres Strait — An amateur Ship-
wreck — Friends on the Australian coast — Perils of a coral sea.

E 1, 1897, on returning to my vessel
I found waiting for me the letter of sympathy
which I subjoin :

A lady sends Mr. Slocum the inclosed five-pound note
asa token of her appreciation of his bravery in crossing
the wide seas on so small a boat, and all alone, without
human sympathy to help when danger threatened. All
success to you.

To this day I do not know who wrote it or to
whom I am indebted for the generous gift it con-
tained. I could not refuse a thing so kindly meant,
but promised myself to pass it on with interest at
the first opportunity, and this I did before leaving
Australia.

The season of fair weather around the north of
Australia being yet a long way off, I sailed to other
ports in Tasmania, where it is fine the year round,
the first of these being Beauty Point, near which
are Beaconsfield and the great Tasmania gold-mine,

which I visited in turn. I saw much gray, unin-
1&3

CRUISING ROUND TASMANIA 181

teresting rock being hoisted out of the mine there,
and hundreds of stamps erushing it into powder.
People told me there was gold in it, and I believed
what they said.

I remember Beauty Point for its shady forest
and for the road among the tall gum-trees. While
there the governor of New South Wales, Lord
Hampden, and his family came in on a steam-yacht,
sight-seeing. The Spray, anchored near the land-
ing-pier, threw her bunting out, of course, and
probably a more insignificant craft bearing the
Stars and Stripes was never seen in those waters.
However, the governors party seemed to know
why it floated there, and all about the Spray, and
when I heard his Excellency say, “Introduce me
to the captain,” or “Introduce the captain to me,”
whichever it was, I found myself at once in the
presence of a gentleman and a friend, and one
greatly interested in my voyage. If any one of
the party was more interested than the governor
himself, it was the Honorable Margaret, his daugh-
ter. On leaving, Lord and Lady Hampden promised
to rendezvous with me on board the Spray at the
Paris Exposition in 1900. “If we live,” they said,
and I added, for my part, “Dangers of the seas
excepted.”

From Beauty Point the Spray visited George-
town, near the mouth of the river Tamar. This
little settlement, I believe, marks the place where
the first footprints were made by whites in Tas-
mania, though it never grew to be more than a
hamlet.

Considering that I had seen something of the

182 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

world, and finding people here interested in adven-
ture, I talked the matter over before my first audi-
ence in a little hall by the country road. A piano
having been brought in from a neighbor's, I was
helped out by the severe thumping it got, and by a
“Tommy Atkins” song from a strolling comedian.
People came from a great distance, and the atten-
dance all told netted the house about three pounds
sterling. The owner of the hall, a kind lady from
Scotland, would take no rent, and so my lecture
from the start was a success.

From this snug little place I made sail for Dev-
onport, a thriving place on the river Mersey, a few
hours’ sail westward along the coast, and fast
becoming the most important port in Tasmania.
Large steamers enter there now and carry away
great cargoes of farm produce, but the Spray was
the first vessel to bring the Stars and Stripes to the
port, the harbor-master, Captain Murray, told me,
and so it is written in the port records. For the
great distinction the Spray enjoyed many civilities
while she rode comfortably at anchor in her port-
duster awning that covered her from stem to stern.

From the magistrates house, * Malunnah;? on the
point, she was saluted by the Jack both on coming
in and on going out, and dear Mrs. Aikenhead, the
mistress of Malunnah, supplied the Spray with jams
and jellies of all sorts, by the ease, prepared from
the fruits of her own rich garden — enough to last
all the way home and to spare. Mrs. Wood, farther
up the harbor, put up bottles of raspberry wine for
me. At this point, more than ever before, I was in
the land of good cheer. Mrs. Powell sent on board

ABUNDANT PROVISIONS 183

chutney prepared “as we prepare it in India? Fish
and game were plentiful here, and the voice of the
gobbler was heard, and from Pardo, farther up the
country, came an enormous cheese; and yet people

The Spray in her port duster at Devonport, Tasmania,
February 22, 1897.

inquire: * What did you live on? What did you
eat ??

I was haunted by the beauty of the landseape all
about, of the natural ferneries then disappearing,
and of the domed forest-trees on the slopes, and
was fortunate in meeting a gentleman intent on

184 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

preserving in art the beauties of his country. He
presented me with many reproduetions from his
collection of pictures, also many originals, to show
to my friends.

By another gentleman I was charged to tell the
glories of Tasmania in every land and on every
occasion. This was Dr. McCall, M. L.C. The doc-
tor gave me useful hints on lecturing. It was not
without misgivings, however, that I filled away on
this new course, and I am free to say that it is only
by the kindness of sympathetic audiences that my
oratorical bark was held on even keel. Soon
after my first talk the kind doctor came to me
with words of approval. As in many other of
my enterprises, I had gone about it at once and
without second thought. “Man, man,” said he,
“great nervousness is only a sign of brain, and the
more brain a man has the longer it takes him to
get over the affliction; but,” he added reflectively,
“you will get over it.” However, in my own behalf
I think it only fair to say that I am not yet entirely
eured.

The Spray was hauled out on the marine railway
at Devonport and examined earefully top and bot-
tom, but was found absolutely free from the destruc-
tive teredo, and sound in all respects. To protect
her further against the ravage of these insects the
bottom was coated once more with copper paint,
for she would have to sail through the Coral and
Arafura seas before refitting again. Everything
was done to fit her for all the known dangers. But
it was not without regret that I looked forward to
the day of sailing from a country of so many pleas-

AGAIN AT SYDNEY 185

ant associations. I£ there was a moment in my
voyage when I could have given it up, it was there
and then; but no vacancies for a better post being
open, I weighed anchor April 16, 1897, and again
put to sea.

The season of summer was then over; winter
was rolling up from the south, with fair winds for
the north. A foretaste of winter wind sent the
Spray flying round Cape Howe and as far as Cape
Bundooro farther along, whieh she passed on the
following day, retracing her course northward.
This was a fine run, and boded good for the long
voyage home from the antipodes. My old Christ-
mas friends on Bundooro seemed to be up and
moving when I came the second time by their cape,
and we exchanged signals again, while the sloop
sailed along as before in a smooth sea and close to
the shore.

The weather was fine, with clear sky the rest of
the passage to Port Jackson (Sydney), where the
Spray arrived April 22, 1897, and anchored in
Watson’s Bay, near the heads, in eight fathoms of
water. The harbor from the heads to Parramatta,
up the river, was more than ever alive with boats
and yachts of every class. It was, indeed, a scene
of animation, hardly equaled in any other part of
the world.

A few days later the bay was flecked with tem-
pestuous waves, and none but stout ships carried
sail. I was in a neighboring hotel then, nursing a
neuralgia which I had picked up alongshore, and
had only that moment got a glance of just the
stern of a large, unmanageable steamship passing

186 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

the range of my window as she forged in by the
point, when the bell-boy burst into my room shout-
ing that the Spray had “gone bung.” I tumbled
out quickly, to learn that “bung” meant that a
large steamship had run into her, and that it was
the one of which I saw the stern, the other end of her
having hit the Spray. It turned out, however, that
no damage was done beyond the loss of an anchor
and chain, which from the shock of the collision
had parted at the hawse. I had nothing at all to
complain of, though, in the end, for the captain,
after he clubbed his ship, took the Spray in tow
up the harbor, clear of all dangers, and sent her
back again, in charge of an officer and three men,
to her anchorage in the bay, with a polite note say-
ing he would repair any damages done. But what
yawing about she made of it when she came with
a stranger at the helm! Her old friend the pilot
of the Pinta would not have been guilty of such
lubberly work. But to my great delight they got
her into a berth, and the neuralgia left me then, or
was forgotten. The captain of the steamer, like a
true seaman, kept his word, and his agent, Mr. Col-
lishaw handed me on the very next day the price
of the lost anchor and chain, with something over
for anxiety of mind. I remember that he offered
me twelve pounds at once; but my lucky number
being thirteen, we made the amount thirteen
pounds, which squared all accounts.

I sailed again, May 9, before a strong southwest
wind, which sent the Spray gallantly on as far as
Port Stevens, where it fell calm and then eame up
ahead; but the weather was fine, and so remained

NORTHWARD BOUND FOR TORRES STRAIT 187

for many days, which was a great change from the
state of the weather experienced here some months
before.

Having a full set of admiralty sheet-charts of the
coast and Barrier Reef, I felt easy in mind. Cap-
tain Fisher, R. N., who had steamed through the
Barrier passages in H. M. S. Orlando, advised me
from the first to take this route, and I did not
regret coming back to it now.

The wind, for a few days after passing Port
Stevens, Seal Rocks, and Cape Hawk, was light and
dead ahead; but these points are photographed on
my memory from the trial of beating round them
some months before when bound the other way.
But now, with a good stock of books on board, I
fell to reading day and night,leaving this pleasant
occupation merely to trim sails or tack, or to lie
down and rest, while the Spray nibbled at the miles.
I tried to compare my state with that of old cir-
eumnavigators, who sailed exactly over the route
which I took from Cape Verde Islands or farther
back to this point and beyond, but there was no
comparison so far as I had got. Their hardships
and romantic escapes — those of them who escaped
death and worse sufferings — did not enter into my
experience, sailing all alone around the world. For
me is left to tell only of pleasant experiences, till
finally my adventures are prosy and tame.

I had just finished reading some of the most
interesting of the old voyages in woe-begone ships,
and was already near Port Macquarie, on my own
eruise, when I made out, May 13, a modern dandy
craft in distress, anchored on the coast. Standing

188 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

in for her, I found that she was the cutter-yacht
Akbar, which had sailed from Watson’s Bay about

“ * Ig it a-goin’ to blow ?’”

three days ahead of the Spray, and that she had
run at once into trouble. No wonder she did so.

1 Akbar was not her registered name, which need not be told.

AN AMATEUR SHIPWRECK 189

It was a ease of babes in the wood or butterflies
atsea. Her owner, on his maiden voyage, was all
duck trousers; the captain, distinguished for the
enormous yachtsman’s eap he wore, was a Mur-
rumbidgee! whaler before he took command of the
Akbar ; and the navigating officer, poor fellow, was
almost as deaf as a post, and nearly as stiff and
immovable as a post in the ground. These three
Jolly tars comprised the erew. None of them
knew more about the sea or about a vessel than a
newly born babe knows about another world.
They were bound for New Guinea, so they said;
perhaps it was as well that three tenderfeet so
tender as those never reached that destination.

The owner, whom I had met before he sailed,
wanted to race the poor old Spray to Thursday
Island en route. I declined the challenge, natu-
rally, on the ground of the unfairness of three
young yachtsmen in a elipper against an old sailor
all alone in a craft of eoarse build; besides that, I
would not on any aecount race in the Coral Sea.

“Spray ahoy!” they all hailed now. “ What's
the weather goin’ t? be? Isita-goin’ to blow? And
don't you think we ’d better go back t? r-r-refit ?”

I thought, “If ever you get back, don’t refit,”
but I said: “Give me the end of a rope, and I'll
tow you into yon port farther along; and on your
lives,” I urged, “do not go back round Cape Hawk,
for it ’s winter to the south of it.”

They purposed making for Newcastle under jury-

1 The Murrumbidgee is a small river winding among the moun-
tains of Australia, and would be the last place in which to look for
a whale.

190 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

sails; for their mainsail had been blown to ribbons,
even the jigger had been blown away, and her rig-
ging flew at loose ends. The Akbar, in a word,
was a wreck.

* Up anchor,” I shouted, “up anchor, and let me
tow you into Port Macquarie, twelve miles north
of this."

“No,” eried the owner; “ we'll go back to New-
eastle. We missed Newcastle on the way coming;
we did n't see the light, and it was not thick,
either? This he shouted very loud, ostensibly
for my hearing, but closer even than necessary, I
thought, to the ear of the navigating officer. Again
I tried to persuade them to be towed into the port
of refuge so near at hand. It would have eost them
only the trouble of weighing their anchor and pass-
ing me a rope; of this I assured them, but they
declined even this, in sheer ignorance of a rational
course.

* What is your depth of water?” I asked.

“ Don’t know; we lost our lead. All the chain
is out. We sounded with the anchor.”

“Send your dinghy over, and I'll give you a lead.”

* We've lost our dinghy, too,” they cried.

“God is good, else you would have lost your-
selves,” and “Farewell” was all I could say.

The trifling service proffered by the Spray would
have saved their vessel.

“ Report us,” they cried, as I stood on — “report
us with sails blown away, and that we don’t care
a dash and are not afraid.”

“Then there is no hope for you,” and again
“ Farewell.”

FRIENDS ON THE AUSTRALIAN COAST 191

I promised I would report them, and did so at
the first opportunity, and out of humane reasons I
do so again. On the following day I spoke the
steamship Sherman, bound down the coast, and re-
ported the yacht in distress and that it would be
an act of humanity to tow her somewhere away
from her exposed position on an open coast. That
she did not get a tow from the steamer was from
no lack of funds to pay the bill; for the owner,
lately heir to a few hundred pounds, had the money
with him. The proposed voyage to New Guinea
was to look that island over with a view to its pur-
ehase. It was about eighteen days before I heard
of the Akbar again, which was on the 31st of May,
when I reached Cooktown, on the Endeavor River,
where I found this news:

May 31, the yacht Akbar, from Sydney for New Guinea,
three hands on board, lost at Crescent Head; the crew
saved.

So it took them several days to lose the yacht,
after all.

After speaking the distressed Akbar and the
Sherman, the voyage for many days was unevent-
ful save in the pleasant incident on May 16 of a
chat by signal with the people on South Solitary
Island, a dreary stone heap in the ocean just off
the coast of New South Wales, in latitude 30° 12’
south.

* What vessel is that?” they asked, as the sloop
eame abreast of their island. For answer I tried
them with the Stars and Stripes at the peak.
Down came their signals at once, and up went the

192 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

British ensign instead, which they dipped heartily.
I understood from this that they made out my
vessel and knew all about her, for they asked
no more questions. They did n’t even ask if the
“voyage would pay," but they threw out this
friendly message, ^ Wishing you a pleasant voy-
age," which at that very moment I was having.

May 19 the Spray, passing the Tweed River,
was signaled from Danger Point, where those on
shore seemed most anxious about the state of my
health, for they asked if “all hands? were well, to
which I could say, “ Yes."

On the following day the Spray rounded Great
Sandy Cape, and, what is à notable event in every
voyage, picked up the trade-winds, and these winds
followed her now for many thousands of miles,
never ceasing to blow from a moderate gale to a
mild summer breeze, except at rare intervals.

From the pitch of the cape was a noble light seen
twenty-seven miles; passing from this to Lady
Elliott Light, which stands on an island as a senti-
nel at the gateway of the Barrier Reef, the Spray
was at once in the fairway leading north. Poets
have sung of beacon-light and of pharos, but did
ever poet behold a great light flash up before his
path on a dark night in the midst of a coral sea?
If so, he knew the meaning of his song.

The Spray had sailed for hours in suspense, evi-
dently stemming a current. Almost mad with
doubt, I grasped the helm to throw her head off
shore, when blazing out of the sea was the light
ahead. “Excalibur!” cried “all hands,” and re-
joiced, and sailed on. The Spray was now in a

PERILS OF A CORAL SEA 193

protected sea and smooth water, the first she had
dipped her keel into since leaving Gibraltar, and a
change it was from the heaving of the misnamed
“Pacific” Ocean.

The Pacific is perhaps, upon the whole, no more
boisterous than other oceans, though I feel quite
safe in saying that it is not more pacific except in
name. It is often wild enough in one part or an-
other. I once knew a writer who, after saying
beautiful things about the sea, passed through a
Pacific hurricane, and he became a changed man.
But where, after all, would be the poetry of the sea
were there no wild waves? At last here was the
Spray in the midst of a sea of coral. The sea itself
might be called smooth indeed, but coral rocks are
always rough, sharp, and dangerous. I trusted now
to the mercies of the Maker of all reefs, keeping a
good lookout at the same time for perils on every
hand.

Lo! the Barrier Reef and the waters of many
colors studded all about with enchanted islands!
I behold among them after all many safe harbors,
else my vision is astray. On the 24th of May, the
sloop, having made one hundred and ten miles a
day from Danger Point, now entered Whitsunday
Pass, and that night sailed through among the
islands. When the sun rose next morning I looked
back and regretted having gone by while it was
dark, for the scenery far astern was varied and
eharming.

CHAPTER XV

Arrival at Port Denison, Queensland — A lecture — Reminiscences
of Captain Cook — Lecturing for charity at Cooktown — A happy
eseape from a coral reef— Home Island, Sunday Island, Bird
Island— An American pearl-fisherman — Jubilee at Thursday
Island — A new ensign for the Spray — Booby Island — Across the
Indian Ocean — Christmas Island.

N the morning of the 26th Gloucester Island
was close aboard, and the Spray anchored in
the evening at Port Denison, where rests, on a hill,
the sweet little town of Bowen, the future water-
ing place and health-resort of Queensland. The
country all about here had a healthful appearance.
The harbor was easy of approach, spacious and
safe, and afforded excellent holding-ground. It
was quiet in Bowen when the Spray arrived, and
the good people with an hour to throw away on
the second evening of her arrival came down to the
School of Arts to talk about the voyage, it being
the latest event. It was duly advertised in the two
little papers, “ Boomerang” and “Nully Nully,” in
the one the day before the affair came off, and
in the other the day after, which was all the same
to the editor, and, for that matter, it was the
same to me.
Besides this, circulars were distributed with a
flourish, and the “best bellman” in Australia was
194

A LECTURE 195

employed. ButI could have keelhauled the wretch,
bell and all, when he came to the door of the little
hotel where my prospective audience and I were
dining, and with his clattering bell and fiendish
yell made noises that would awake the dead, all
over the voyage of the Spray from “Boston to
Bowen, the two Hubs in the cart-wheels of crea-
tion,” as the “ Boomerang” afterward said.

Mr. Myles, magistrate, harbor-master, land com-
missioner, gold warden, etc., was chairman, and in-
troduced me, for what reason I never knew, except
to embarrass me with a sense of vain ostentation
and embitter my life, for Heaven knows I had met
every person in town the first hour ashore. I knew
them all by name now, and they all knew me.
However, Mr. Myles was a good talker. Indeed, I
tried to induce him to go on and tell the story
while I showed the pictures, but this he refused to
do. I may explain that it was a talk illustrated by
stereopticon. The views were good, but the lan-
tern, a thirty-shilling affair, was wretched, and had
only an oil-lamp in it.

I/sailed early the next morning before the papers
came out, thinking it best to do so. They each
appeared with a favorable column, however, of
what they called a lecture, so I learned afterward,
and they had a kind word for the bellman besides.

From Port Denison the sloop ran before the con-
stant trade-wind, and made no stop at all, night or
day, till she reached Cooktown, on the Endeavor
River, where she arrived Monday, May 31, 1897,
before a furious blast of wind encountered that
day fifty miles down the coast. On this parallel of

196 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

latitude is the high ridge and backbone of the trade-
winds, which about Cooktown amount often to a
hard gale.

I had been charged to navigate the route with
extra care, and to feel my way over the ground.
The skilled officer of the royal navy who advised
me to take the Barrier Reef passage wrote me that
H. M. S. Orlando steamed nights as well as days
through it, but that I, under sail, would jeopardize
my vessel on coral reefs if I undertook to do so.

Confidentially, it would have been no easy matter
finding anchorage every night. The hard work,
too, of getting the sloop under way every morning
was finished, I had hoped, when she cleared the
Strait of Magellan. Besides that, the best of ad-
miralty charts made it possible to keep on sailing
night and day. Indeed, with a fair wind, and in
the elear weather of that season, the way through
the Barrier Reef Channel, in all sincerity, was
elearer than a highway in a busy city, and by all
odds less dangerous. But to any one contemplat-
ing the voyage I would say, beware of reefs day
or night, or, remaining on the land, be wary still.

“The Spray came flying into port like a bird,”
said the longshore daily papers of Cooktown the
morning after she arrived; “ and it seemed strange,”
they added, “ that only one man could be seen on
board working the craft” The Spray was doing
her best, to be sure, for it was near night, and she
was in haste to find a perch before dark.

Tacking inside of all the craft in port, I moored
her at sunset nearly abreast the Captain Cook
monument, and next morning went ashore to

REMINISCENCES OF CAPTAIN COOK 197

feast my eyes on the very stones the great naviga-
tor had seen, for I was now on a seaman's conse-
crated ground. But there seemed a question in

i u CNN
[me

The Spray leaving Sydney, Australia, in the new suit of sails given
by Commodore Foy of Australia.
(From a photograph.)

Cooktown's mind as to the exaet spot where his
ship, the Endeavor, hove down for repairs on her
memorable voyage around the world. Some said it
was not at all at the place where the monument

198 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

now stood. A discussion of the subject was going
on one morning where I happened to be, and a
young lady present, turning to me as one of some
authority in nautical matters, very flatteringly
asked my opinion. Well, I could see no reason why
Captain Cook, if he made up his mind to repair his
ship inland, could n’t have dredged out a channel
to the place where the monument now stood, if he
had a dredging-machine with him, and afterward
fill it up again; for Captain Cook could do ’most
anything, and nobody ever said that he had n’t a
dredger along. The young lady seemed to lean to
my way of thinking, and following up the story of
the historical voyage, asked if I had visited the
point farther down the harbor where the great cir-
cumnavigator was murdered. This took my breath,
but a bright school-boy coming along relieved my
embarrassment, for, like all boys, seeing that infor-
mation was wanted, he volunteered to supply it.
Said he: “Captain Cook was n't murdered ’ere at
all, ma’am; ’e was killed in Hafrica: a lion et 'im.?

Here I was reminded of distressful days gone
by. I think it was in 1866 that the old steamship
Soushay, from Batavia for Sydney, put in at Cook-
town for scurvy-grass, as I always thought, and
“incidentally” to land mails. On her sick-list was
my fevered self; and so I did mt see the place till
I came back on the Spray thirty-one years later.
And now I saw coming into port the physical
wrecks of miners from New Guinea, destitute and
dying. Many had died on the way and had been
buried at sea. He would have been a hardened

LECTURING FOR CHARITY AT COOKTOWN 199

wretch who could look on and not try to do some-
thing for them.

The sympathy of all went out to these sufferers,
but the little town was already straitened from a
long run on its benevolence. I thought of the
matter, of the lady's gift to me at Tasmania, which
I had promised myself I would keep only as a loan,
but found now, to my embarrassment, that I had
invested the money. However, the good Cooktown
people wished to hear a story of the sea, and how
the crew of the Spray fared when illness got aboard
of her. Accordingly the little Presbyterian church
on the hill was opened for a conversation; every-
body talked, and they made a roaring success of it.
Judge Chester, the magistrate, was at the head cf
the gam, and so it was bound to succeed. He it
was who annexed the island of New Guinea to
Great Britain. “ While I was about it,” said he,
“I annexed the blooming lot of it? There was a
ring in the statement pleasant to the ear of an old
voyager. However, the Germans made such a row
over the judge’s mainsail haul that they got a share
in the venture.

Well, I was now indebted to the miners of Cook-
town for the great privilege of adding a mite to a
worthy cause, and to Judge Chester all the town
was indebted for a general good time. The matter
standing so, I sailed on June 6, 1897, heading away
for the north as before.

Arrived at a very inviting anchorage about sun-
down, the 7th, I came to, for the night, abreast the
Claremont light-ship. This was the only time

200 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

throughout the passage of the Barrier Reef Chan-
nel that the Spray anchored, except at Port Denison
and at Endeavor River. On the very night follow-
ing this, however (the 8th), I regretted keenly, for
an instant, that I had not anchored before dark, as
I might have done easily under the lee of a coral
reef. It happened in this way. The Spray had
just passed M. Reef light-ship, and left the light
dipping astern, when, going at full speed, with
sheets off, she hit the M. Reef itself on the north
end, where I expected to see a beacon.

She swung off quickly on her heel, however, and
with one more bound on a swell cut across the shoal
point so quickly that I hardly knew how it was
done. The beacon was n't there; at least, I did n't
seeit. I had n’t time to look for it after she struck,
and certainly it did n't much matter then whether
I saw it or not.

But this gave her a fine departure for Cape
Greenville, the next point ahead. I saw the ugly
boulders under the sloop’s keel as she flashed over
them, and I made a mental note of it that the letter
M, for which the reef was named, was the thirteenth
one in our alphabet, and that thirteen, as noted
years before, was still my lucky number. The na-
tives of Cape Greenville are notoriously bad, and I
was advised to give them the go-by. Accordingly,
from M Reef I steered outside of the adjacent is-
lands, to be on the safe side. Skipping along now,
the Spray passed Home Island, off the pitch of the
cape, soon after midnight, and squared away on a
westerly course. A short time later she fell in with
a steamer bound south, groping her way in the

HOME ISLAND, SUNDAY ISLAND, BIRD ISLAND 201

dark and making the night dismal with her own
black smoke.

From Home Island 1 made for Sunday Island,
and bringing that abeam, shortened sail, not wish-
ing to make Bird Island, farther along, before
daylight, the wind being still fresh and the islands
being low, with dangers about them. Wednesday,
June 9, 1897, at daylight, Bird Island was dead
ahead, distant two and a half miles, which I con-
sidered near enough. A strong current was press-
ing the sloop forward. I did not shorten sail too
soon in the night! The first and only Australian
eanoe seen on the voyage was encountered here
standing from the mainland, with a rag of sail set,
bound for this island. :

A long, slim fish that leaped on board in the
night was found on deck this morning. I had
it for breakfast. The spry chap was no larger
around than a herring, whieh it resembled in
every respect, except that it was three times as
long; but that was so mueh the better, for I am
rather fond of fresh herring, anyway. À great
number of fisher-birds were about this day, which
was one of the pleasantest on God's earth. The
Spray, daneing over the waves, entered Albany
Pass as the sun drew low in the west over the
hills of Australia.

At 7:30 p.m. the Spray, now through the pass,
eame to anchor in a cove in the mainland, near a
pearl-fisherman, called the Tarawa, which was at
anchor, her captain from the deck of his vessel di-
recting me to a berth. This done, he at once came
on board to clasp hands. The Tarawa was a Cali-

202 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

fornian, and Captain Jones, her master, was an
American.

On the following morning Captain Jones brought
on board two pairs of exquisite pearl shells, the
most perfect ones I ever saw. They were probably
the best he had, for Jones was the heart-yarn of a
sailor. He assured me that if I would remain a
few hours longer some friends from Somerset, near
by, would pay us all a visit, and one of the crew,
sorting shells on deck, “guessed” they would.
The mate “guessed” so, too. The friends came, as
even the second mate and cook had “guessed” they
would. 'lhey were Mr. Jardine, stockman, famous
throughout the land, and his family. Mrs. Jardine
was the niece of King Malietoa, and cousin to the
beautiful Faamu-Sami (“To make the sea burn”),
who visited the Spray at Apia. Mr. Jardine was
himself a fine specimen of a Scotsman. With his
little family about him, he was content to live in
this remote place, accumulating the comforts of
life.

The fact of the Tarawa having been built in
America accounted for the crew, boy Jim and all,
being such good guessers. Strangely enough,
though, Captain Jones himself, the only American
aboard, was never heard to guess at all.

After a pleasant chat and good-by to the people
of the Tarawa, and to Mr. and Mrs. J ardine, I
again weighed anchor and stood across for Thurs-
day Island, now in plain view, mid-channel in
Torres Strait, where I arrived shortly after noon.
Here the Spray remained over until June 24. Being
the only American representative in port, this tarry

JUBILEE AT THURSDAY ISLAND 203

was imperative, for on the 22d was the Queen's
diamond jubilee. The two days over were, as sailors
say, for “coming up.”

Meanwhile I spent pleasant days about the island.
Mr. Douglas, resident magistrate, invited me on a
cruise in his steamer one day among the islands in
Torres Strait. This being a scientific expedition
in charge of Professor Mason Bailey, botanist, we
rambled over Friday and Saturday islands, where
I got a glimpse of botany. Miss Bailey, the pro-
fessor’s daughter, accompanied the expedition, and
told me of many indigenous plants with long names.

The 22d was the great day on Thursday Island,
for then we had not only the jubilee, but a jubilee
with a grand corroboree in it, Mr. Douglas having
brought some four hundred native warriors and
their wives and children across from the mainland
to give the celebration the true native touch, for
when they do a thing on Thursday Island they do
it with a roar. The corroboree was, at any rate, a
howling success. It took place at night, and the
performers, painted in fantastic colors, danced or
leaped about before a blazing fire. Some were
rigged and painted like birds and beasts, in which
the emu and kangaroo were well represented. One
fellow leaped like a frog. Some had the human
skeleton painted on their bodies, while they jumped
about threateningly, spear in hand, ready to strike
down some imaginary enemy. The kangaroo
hopped and danced with natural ease and grace,
making a fine figure. All kept time to music, vocal
and instrumental, the instruments (save the mark !)
being bits of wood, which they beat one against

204 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

the other, and saucer-like bones, held in the palm
of the hands, which they knocked together, making
a dull sound. It was a show at once amusing,
spectacular, and hideous.

The warrior aborigines that I saw in Queensland
were for the most part lithe and fairly well built,
but they were stamped always with repulsive fea-
tures, and their women were, if possible, still more
ill favored.

I observed that on the day of the jubilee no for-
eign flag was waving in the public grounds except
the Stars and Stripes, which along with the Union
Jack guarded the gateway, and floated in many
places, from the tiniest to the standard size. Speak-
ing to Mr. Douglas, I ventured a remark on this
compliment to my country. “Oh,” said he, “this
is a family affair, and we do not consider the Stars
and Stripes a foreign flag.” The Spray of course
flew her best bunting, and hoisted the Jack as well
as her own noble fiag as high as she could.

On June 24 the Spray, well fitted in every way,
sailed for the long voyage ahead, down the Indian
Ocean. Mr. Douglas gave her a flag as she was
leaving his island. The Spray had now passed
nearly all the dangers of the Coral Sea and Torres
Strait, which, indeed, were not a few; and all ahead
from this point was plain sailing and a straight
course. The trade-wind was still blowing fresh,
and could be safely counted on now down to the `
coast of Madagascar, if not beyond that, for it was
still early in the season.

I had no wish to arrive off the Cape of Good
Hope before midsummer, and it was now early

BOOBY ISLAND 205

winter. I had been off that cape once in July,
which was, of course, midwinter there. The stout
ship I then commanded encountered only fierce
hurricanes, and she bore them ill. I wished for no
winter gales now. It was not that I feared them
more, being in the Spray instead of a large ship,
but that I preferred fine weather in any case. Itis
true that one may encounter heavy gales off the
Cape of Good Hope at any season of the year, but
in the summer they are less frequent and do not
continue so long. And so with time enough before
me to admit of a run ashore on the islands en route,
l shaped the course now for Keeling Cocos, atoll
islands, distant twenty-seven hundred miles. Tak-
ing a departure from Booby Island, which the sloop
passed early in the day, I decided to sight Timor
on the way, an island of high mountains.

Booby Island I had seen before, but only once,
however, and that was when in the steamship
Soushay, onw hich I was “hove-down” in a fever.
When she steamed along this way I was well enough
to crawl on deck to look at Booby Island. Had I
died for it, I would have seen that island. In those
days passing ships landed stores in a cave on the
island for shipwrecked and distressed wayfarers.
Captain Airy of the Soushay, a good man, sent a
boat to the cave with his contribution to the general
store. The stores were landed in safety, and the
boat, returning, brought back from the improvised
post-office there a dozen or more letters, most of
them left by whalemen, with the request that the
first homeward-bound ship would carry them along
and see to their mailing, which had been the cus-

206 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

tom of this strange postal service for many years.
Some of the letters brought baek by our boat were
directed to New Bedford, and some to Fairhaven,
Massachusetts.

There is a light to-day on Booby Island, and
regular packet communieation with the rest of the
world, and the beautiful uncertainty of the fate of
letters left there is a thing of the past. I made no
call at the little island, but standing close in, ex-
changed signals with the keeper of the light. Sail-
ing on, the sloop was at once in the Arafura Sea,
where for days she sailed in water milky white and
green and purple. It was my good fortune to enter
the sea on the last quarter of the moon, the advan-
tage being that in the dark nights I witnessed the
phosphorescent light effect at night in its greatest
splendor. The sea, where the sloop disturbed it,
seemed all ablaze, so that by its light I could see
the smallest articles on deck, and her wake was a
path of fire.

On the 25th of June the sloop was already clear
of all the shoals and dangers, and was sailing on a
smooth sea as steadily as before, but with speed
somewhat slackened. I got out the flying-jib made
at Juan Fernandez, and set it as a spinnaker from
the stoutest bamboo that Mrs. Stevenson had given
me at Samoa. The spinnaker pulled like a sodger,
and the bamboo holding its own, the Spray mended
her pace.

Several pigeons flying across to-day from Aus-
tralia toward the islands bent their course over the
Spray. Smaller birds were seen flying in the op-
posite direction. In the part of the Arafura that I

ACROSS THE INDIAN OCEAN 207

came to first, where it was shallow, sea-snakes
writhed about on the surface and tumbled over
and over in the waves. As the sloop sailed farther
on, where the sea became deep, they disappeared.
In the ocean, where the water is blue, not one was
ever seen.

In the days of serene weather there was not much
to do but to read and take rest on the Spray, to
make up as much as possible for the rough time
off Cape Horn, whieh was not yet forgotten, and
to forestall the Cape of Good Hope by a store of
ease. My sea journal was now much the same
from day to day — something like this of June 26
and 27, for example:

June 26, in the morning, it is a bit squally; later in
the day blowing a steady breeze.

On the log at noon is . . . . . . . 180 miles

Subtract correction for slip . . . . . 10 “
120: *

Aad for entrout 2. 7. 200 55. ADS
130 *

Latitude by observation at noon, 10? 23' S.
Longitude as per mark on the chart.

There was n't much brain-work in that log, I'm
sure. June 27 makes a better showing, when all
is told:

First of all, to-day, was a flying-fish on deck; fried it
in butter.

133 miles on the log.

For slip, off, and for current, on, as per guess, about
equal — let it go at that.

Latitude by observation at noon, 10? 25' S.

208 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

For several days now the Spray sailed west on
the parallel of 10° 25' S., as true as a hair. If she
deviated at all from that, through the day or night,
—and this may have happened,—she was back,
strangely enough, at noon, at the same latitude.
But the greatest science was in reckoning the longi-
tude. My tin clock and only timepiece had by this
time lost its minute-hand, but after I boiled her she
told the hours, and that was near enough on along
stretch.

On the 2d of July the great island of Timor was
in view away to the nor’ard. On the following day
I saw Dana Island, not far off, and a breeze came
up from the land at night, fragrant of the spices or
what not of the coast.

On the 11th, with all sail set and with the spin-
naker still abroad, Christmas Island, about noon,
came into view one point on the starboard bow.
Before night it was abeam and distant two and a
half miles. The surface of the island appeared
evenly rounded from the sea to a considerable
height in the center. In outline it was as smooth
as a fish, and a long ocean swell, rolling up, broke
against the sides, where it lay like a monster asleep,
motionless on the sea. It seemed to have the pro-
portions of a whale, and as the sloop sailed along
its side to the part where the head would be,
there was a nostril, even, which was a blow-hole
through a ledge of rock where every wave that
dashed threw up a shaft of water, lifelike and real.

It had been a long time since I last saw this
island; but I remember my temporary admiration
for the captain of the ship I was then in, the

CHRISTMAS ISLAND 209

Tanjore, when he sang out one morning from the
quarter-deck, well aft, “ Go aloft there, one of ye,
with a pair of eyes, and see Christmas Island”
Sure enough, there the island was in sight from
the royal-yard. Captain M. had thus made a
great hit, and he never got over it. 'The chief
mate, terror of us ordinaries in the ship, walking
never to windward of the captain, now took him-
self very humbly to leeward altogether. When we
arrived at Hong-Kong there was a letter in the
Ship's mail for me. I was in the boat with the
eaptain some hours while he had it. But do you
suppose he could hand a letter to a seaman? No,
indeed; not even to an ordinary seaman. When
we got to the ship he gave it to the first mate; the
first mate gave it to the second mate, and he laid
it, michingly, on the capstan-head, where I could
get it!

CHAPTER XVI

A call for careful navigation — Three hours’ steering in twenty-
three days— Arrival at the Keeling Coeos Islands — À curious
chapter of social history — A welcome from the children of the
islands — Cleaning and painting the Spray on the beach— A Mo-
hammedan blessing for a pot of jam — Keeling as a paradise—A
risky adventure in a small boat— Away to Rodriguez — Taken
for Antichrist — The governor calms the fears of the people — A
lecture — À convent in the hills.

O the Keeling Cocos Islands was now only five

hundred and fifty miles; but even in this short

run it was necessary to be extremely careful in keep-
ing a true course else I would miss the atoll.

On the 12th, some hundred miles southwest of
Christmas Island, I saw anti-trade clouds flying up
from the southwest very high over the regular
winds, which weakened now for a few days, while a
swell heavier than usual set in also from the south-
west. A winter gale was going on in the direction
of the Cape of Good Hope. Accordingly, I steered
higher to windward, allowing twenty miles a day
while this went on, for change of current; and it
was not too much, for on that course I made the
Keeling Islands right ahead. The first unmistak-
able sign of the land was a visit one morning from
a white tern that fluttered very knowingly about
the vessel, and then took itself off westward with a

businesslike air inits wing. The tern is called by
219

THREE HOURS’ STEERING IN TWENTY-THREE DAYS 211

the islanders the “pilot of Keeling Cocos.” Far-
ther on I came among a great number of birds fish-
ing, and fighting over whatever they caught. My
reckoning was up, and springing aloft, I saw from
half-way up the mast cocoanut-trees standing out
of the water ahead. I expected to see this; still, it
thrilled me as an electric shock might have done.
I slid down the mast, trembling under the strangest
sensations; and not able to resist the impulse, I sat
on deck and gave way to my emotions. To folks in
a parlor on shore this may seem weak indeed, but
I am telling the story of a voyage alone.

I did n't toueh the helm, for with the current and
heave of the sea the sloop found herself at the end
of the run absolutely in the fairway of the channel.
You could wt have beaten it in the navy! Then I
trimmed her sails by the wind, took the helm, and
flogged her up the couple of miles or so abreast
the harbor landing, where I cast anchor at 3:30
P.M., July 17, 1897, twenty-three days from Thurs-
day Island. The distance run was twenty-seven
hundred miles as the crow flies. This would have
been a fair Atlantic voyage. It was a delightful
sail! During those twenty-three days I had not
spent altogether more than three hours at the
helm, including the time occupied in beating into
Keeling harbor. I just lashed the helm and let her
go; whether the wind was abeam or dead aft, it
was all the same: she always sailed on her course.
No part of the voyage up to this point, taking it by
and large, had been so finished as this.’

1 Mr. Andrew J. Leach, reporting, July 21, 1897, through Governor
Kynnersley of Singapore, to Joseph Chamberlain, Colonial Seeretary,

212 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

The Keeling Cocos Islands, according to Admiral
Fitzroy, R. N.,lie between the latitudes of 119 50'
and 129 12' S, and the longitudes of 969 51’ and
969 58’ E. They were discovered in 1608-9 by
Captain William Keeling, then in the service of
the East India Company. The southern group
consists of seven or eight islands and islets on the
atoll, which is the skeleton of what some day, ae-
cording to the history of coral reefs, will be a con-
tinuous island. North Keeling has no harbor, is
seldom visited, and is of no importance. The
South Keelings are a strange little world, with
a romantic history all their own. They have been
visited occasionally by the floating spar of some
hurricane-swept ship, or by a tree that has drifted
all the way from Australia, or by an ill-starred

said concerning the Iphegenia’s visit to the atoll: “ As we left the
ocean depths of deepest blue and entered the coral circle, the con-
trast was most remarkable. The brilliant colors of the waters,
transparent to a depth of over thirty feet, now purple, now of the
bluest sky-blue, and now green, with the white crests of the waves
flashing under a brilliant sun, the encircling . . . palm-clad
islands, the gaps between which were to the south undiscernible,
the white sand shores and the whiter gaps where breakers appeared,
and, lastly, the lagoon itself, seven or eight miles across from north
to south, and five to six from east to west, presented a sight never to
be forgotten. After some little delay, Mr. Sidney Ross, the eldest
son of Mr. George Ross, came off to meet us, and soon after, accom-
panied by the doctor and another officer, we went ashore.

“On reaching the landing-stage, we found, hauled up for cleaning,
.ete., the Spray of Boston, a yawl of 12.70 tons gross, the property of
Captain Joshua Slocum. He arrived at the island on the 17th of J uly,
twenty-three days out from Thursday Island. This extraordinary
solitary traveler left Boston some two years ago single-handed,
crossed to Gibraltar, sailed down to Cape Horn, passed through the
Strait of Magellan to the Society Islands, thence to Australia, and
through the Torres Strait to Thursday Island.”

A CURIOUS CHAPTER OF SOCIAL HISTORY 213

ship east away, and finally by man. Even a rock
once drifted to Keeling, held fast among the roots
of a tree.

After the discovery of the islands by Captain
Keeling, their first notable visitor was Captain
John Clunis-Ross, who in 1814 touched in the ship
Borneo on a voyage to India. Captain Ross re-
turned two years later with his wife and family
and his mother-in-law, Mrs. Dymoke, and eight
sailor-artisans, to take possession of the islands,
but found there already one Alexander Hare, who
meanwhile had marked the little atoll as a sort of
Eden for a seraglio of Malay women which he
moved over from the coast of Africa. It was
Ross’s own brother, oddly enough, who freighted
Hare and his crowd of women to the islands, not
knowing of Captain John’s plans to occupy the
little world. And so Hare was there with his out-
fit, as if he had come to stay.

On his previous visit, however, Ross had nailed
the English Jack to a mast on Horsburg Island,
one of the group. After two years shreds of it
still fluttered in the wind, and his sailors, nothing
loath, began at once the invasion of the new king-
dom to take possession of it, women and all. The
force of forty women, with only one man to com-
mand them, was not equal to driving eight sturdy
sailors back into the sea.’

From this time on Hare had a hard time of it.

1 In the accounts given in Findlay’s “ Sailing Directory” of some
of the events there is a chronological discrepancy. I follow the
accounts gathered from the old captain’s grandsons and from records
on the spot.

214 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

He and Ross did not get on well as neighbors. The
islands were too small and too near for characters
so widely different. Hare had “oceans of money,”
and might have lived well in London; but he had
been governor of a wild colony in Borneo, and
could not confine himself to the tame life that
prosy civilization affords. And so he hung on to
the atoll with his forty women, retreating little by
little before Ross and his sturdy crew, till at last
he found himself and his harem on the little island
known to this day as Prison Island, where, like
Bluebeard, he confined his wives in a castle. The
channel between the islands was narrow, the water
was not deep, and the eight Scotch sailors wore
long boots. Hare was now dismayed. He tried
to compromise with rum and other luxuries, but
these things only made matters worse. On the day
following the first St. Andrew’s celebration on the
island, Hare, consumed with rage, and no longer
on speaking terms with the captain, dashed off a
note to him, saying: “Drar Ross: I thought when
I sent rum and roast pig to your sailors that they
would stay away from my flower-garden.” In
reply to which the captain, burning with indigna-
tion, shouted from the center of the island, where
he stood, “Ahoy, there, on Prison Island! You
Hare, don’t you know that rum and roast pig are not
a sailor’s heaven?” Hare said afterward that one
might have heard the captain’s roar across to Java.

The lawless establishment was soon broken up
by the women deserting Prison Island and putting
themselves under Ross’s protection. Hare then
went to Batavia, where he met his death.

A WELCOME FROM THE CHILDREN 215

My first impression upon landing was tnat the
erime of infantieide had not reached the islands of
Keeling Cocos. “The children have all come to

The Spray ashore for ‘‘ boot-topping” at the Keeling Islands.
(From a photograph.)

welcome you,” explained Mr. Ross, as they mustered
at the jetty by hundreds, of all ages and sizes. The
people of this country were all rather shy, but, young
or old, they never passed one or saw one passing

216 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

their door without a salutation. In their musical
voices they would say, ^ Are you walking?” (Jalan,
jalan?”) “Will you come along?” one would
answer. |

For a long time after I arrived the children
regarded the “one-man ship” with suspicion and
fear. A native man had been blown away to sea
many years before, and they hinted to one another
that he might have been changed from black to
white, and returned in the sloop. For some time
every movement I made was closely watched.
They were particularly interested in what I ate.
One day, after I had been “ boot-topping” the sloop
with a composition of coal-tar and other stuff, and
while I was taking my dinner, with the luxury of
blackberry jam, I heard a commotion, and then a
yell and a stampede, as the children ran away
yelling: “The captain is eating coal-tar! The
captain is eating coal-tar!” But they soon found
out that this same “ coal-tar " was very good to eat,
and that I had brought a quantity of it. One day
when I was spreading a sea-biscuit thick with it for
a wide-awake youngster, I heard them whisper,
“Chut-chut!” meaning that a shark had bitten my
hand, which they observed was lame. Thenceforth
they regarded me as a hero, and I had not fingers
enough for the little bright-eyed tots that wanted
to cling to them and follow me about. Before this,
when I held out my hand and said, “Come!” they
would shy off for the nearest house, and say,
“ Dingin” (“It ’s cold”), or “Ujan” (“It ’s going
to rain”). But it was now accepted that I was
not the returned spirit of the lost black, and I

A MOHAMMEDAN BLESSING 219

had plenty of friends about the island, rain or
shine.

One day after this, when I tried to haul the sloop
and found her fast in the sand, the children all
clapped their hands and cried that a kpeting (crab)
was holding her by the keel; and little Ophelia, ten
or twelve years of age, wrote in the Spray’s log-book:

A hundred men with might and main
On the windlass hove, yeo ho!
The cable only came in twain ;
The ship she would not go;
For, child, to tell the strangest thing,
The keel was held by a great kpeting.

This being so or not, it was decided that the Mo-
hammedan priest, Sama the Emim, for a pot of
jam, should ask Mohammed to bless the voyage
and make the crab let go the sloop’s keel, which it
did, if it had hold, and she floated on the very next
tide.

On the 22d of July arrived H. M.S. Iphegema,
with Mr. Justiee Andrew J. Leech and court officers
on board, on a circuit of inspection among the
Straits Settlements, of which Keeling Cocos was a
dependency, to hear complaints and try cases by
law, if any there were to try. They found the Spray
hauled ashore and tied to a cocoanut-tree. But at
the Keeling Islands there had not been a grievance
to complain of since the day that Hare migrated,
for the Rosses have always treated the islanders as
their own family.

If there is a paradise on this earth it is Keeling.
There was not a case for a lawyer, but something

218 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

had to be done, for here were two ships in port, a
great man-of-war and the Spray. Instead of a law-
suit a dance was got up, and all the offieers who
could leave their ship came ashore. Everybody on
the island came, old and young, and the governors
great hall was filled with people. All that could
get on their feet danced, while the babies lay in
heaps in the corners of the room, eontent to look
on. Mylittle friend Ophelia danced with the judge.
For music two fiddles screeched over and over
again the good old tune, “ We won't go home till
morning.” And we did not.

The women at the Keelings do not do all the
drudgery, as in many places visited on the voyage.
It would cheer the heart of a Fuegian woman to
see the Keeling lord of creation up a cocoanut-tree.
Besides cleverly climbing the trees, the men of
Keeling build exquisitely modeled canoes. By far
the best workmanship in boat-building I saw on
the voyage was here. Many finished mechanics
dwelt under the palms at Keeling, and the hum of
the band-saw and the ring of the anvil were heard
from morning till night. The first Scotch settlers
left there the strength of Northern blood and the
inheritance of steady habits. No benevolent so-
ciety has ever done so much for any islanders as
the noble Captain Ross, and his sons, who have
followed his example of industry and thrift.

Admiral Fitzroy of the Beagle, who visited here,
where many things are reversed, spoke of “these
singular though small islands, where crabs eat
cocoanuts, fish eat coral, dogs catch fish, men ride
on turtles, and shells are dangerous man-traps,”

A RISKY ADVENTURE 219

adding that the greater part of the sea-fowl roost
on branches, and many rats make their nests in
the tops of palm-trees.

My vessel being refitted, I decided to load her
with the famous mammoth tridacna shell of Keel-
ing, found in the bayou near by. And right here,
within sight of the village, I came near losing “ the
crew of the Spray” —not from putting my foot in
a man-trap shell, however, but from carelessly
neglecting to look after the details of a trip across
the harbor in a boat. I had sailed over oceans; I
have since completed a course over them all, and
sailed round the whole world without so nearly
meeting a fatality as on that trip across a lagoon,
where I trusted all to some one else, and he, weak
mortal that he was, perhaps trusted all to me.
However that may be, I found myself with a
thoughtless African negro in a rickety bateau that
was fitted with a rotten sail, and this blew away in
mid-channel in a squall, that sent us drifting help-
lessly to sea, where we should have been incon-
tinently lost. With the whole ocean before us to
leeward, I was dismayed to see, while we drifted,
that there was not a paddle or an oar in the boat!
There was an anchor, to be sure, but not enough
rope to tie a cat, and we were already in deep
water. By great good fortune, however, there was
a pole. Plying this as a paddle with the utmost
energy, and by the merest accidental flaw in the
wind to favor us, the trap of a boat was worked
into shoal water, where we could touch bottom and
push her ashore. With Africa, the nearest coast
to leeward, three thousand miles away, with not so

220 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

much as a drop of water in the boat, and a lean
and hungry negro — well, east the lot as one might,
the crew of the Spray in a little while would have

Captain Sloeum drifting out to sea,

been hard to find. It is needless to say that I took
no more such chances. The tridacna were after-
ward procured in a safe boat, thirty of them taking

AWAY TO RODRIGUEZ 221

the place of three tons of cement ballast, which I
threw overboard to make room and give buoyancy.

On August 22, the kpeting, or whatever else it
was that held the sloop in the islands, let go its
hold, and she swung out to sea under all sail,
heading again for home. Mounting one or two
heavy rollers on the fringe of the atoll, she cleared
the flashing reefs. Long before dark Keeling Cocos,
with its thousand souls, as sinless in their lives as
perhaps it is possible for frail mortals to be, was
left out of sight, astern. Out of sight, I say, except
in my strongest affection.

The sea was rugged, and the Spray washed hea-
vily when hauled on the wind, which course I took
for the island of Rodriguez, and which brought the
sea abeam. The true course for the island was
west by south, one quarter south, and the distance
was nineteen hundred miles; but I steered consid-
erably to the windward of that to allow for the
heave of the sea and other leeward effects. My
sloop on this course ran under reefed sails for
days together. I naturally tired of the never-end-
ing motion of the sea, and, above all, of the wetting
I got whenever I showed myself on deck. Under
these heavy weather conditions the Spray seemed
to lag behind on her course; at least, I attributed
to these conditions a discrepancy in the log, which
by the fifteenth day out from Keeling amounted to
one hundred and fifty miles between the rotator
and the mental caleulations I had kept of what
she should have gone, and so I kept an eye lifting
for land. I could see about sundown this day a
bunch of clouds that stood in one spot, right ahead,

222 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

while the other elouds floated on; this was a sign
of something. By midnight, as the sloop sailed on,
& black object appeared where I had seen the rest-
ing clouds. It was still a long way off, but there
eould be no mistaking this: it was the high island
of Rodriguez. I hauled in the patent log, whieh I
was now towing more from habit than from neces-
sity, for I had learned the Spray and her ways long
before this. If one thing was clearer than another in
her voyage, it was that she could be trusted to come
out right and in safety, though at the same time Ial-
ways stood ready to give her the benefit of even the
least doubt. The officers who are over-sure, and
“know it all like a book,” are the ones, I have ob-
served, who wreck the most ships and lose the most
lives. The cause of the discrepancy in the log was
one often met with, namely, coming in contact with
some large fish; two out of the four blades of the
rotator were crushed or bent, the work probably of
a shark. Being sure of the sloop’s position, I lay
down to rest and to think, and I felt better for it.
By daylight the island was abeam, about three
miles away. It wore a hard, weather-beaten ap-
pearance there, all alone, farout in the Indian Ocean,
like land adrift. The windward side was uninvit-
ing, but there was a good port to leeward, and I
hauled in now close on the wind for that. A pilot
came out to take me into the inner harbor, which
was reached through a narrow channel among coral
reefs.

It was a eurious thing that at all of the islands
some reality was insisted on as unreal, whileimprob-
abilities were clothed as hard facts; and so it hap-

TAKEN FOR ANTICHRIST 223

pened here that the good abbé, a few days before,
had been telling his people about the coming of
Antichrist, and when they saw the Spray sail into
the harbor, all feather-white before a gale of wind,
and ru» all standing upon the beach, and with only
one man aboard, they cried, “May the Lord help:
us, it is he, and he has come in a boat!” which I
say would have been the most improbable way of
his coming. Nevertheless, the news went flying
through the place. The governor of the island,
Mr. Roberts, eame down immediately to see what
it was all about, for the little town was in a great
eommotion. One elderly woman, when she heard
of my advent, made for her house and locked her-
selfin. When she heard that I was actually com-
ing up the street she barricaded her doors, and did
not eome out while I was on the island, a period
of eight days. Governor Roberts and his family
did not share the fears of their people, but came on
board at the jetty, where the sloop was berthed,
and their example induced others to come also.
The governors young boys took charge of the
Spray's dinghy at once, and my visit cost his Ex-
cellency, besides great hospitality to me, the build-
ing of a boat for them like the one belonging to
the Spray.

My first day at this Land of Promise was to me
like a fairy-tale. For many days I had studied the
charts and counted the time of my arrival at this
spot, as one might his entrance to the Islands of
the Blessed, looking upon it as the terminus of the
last long run, made irksome by the want of many
things with which, from this time on, I could keep

224 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

well supplied. And behold, here was the sloop,
arrived, and made securely fast to a pier in Rodri-
guez. On the first evening ashore, in the land of
napkins and cut glass, I saw before me still the
ghosts of hempen towels and of mugs with handles
knocked off. Instead of tossing on the sea, how-
ever, as ] might have been, here was Lin a bright
hall, surrounded by sparkling wit, and dining with
the governor of the island! “ Aladdin," I eried,
"where is your lamp? My fisherman's lantern,
whieh I got at Gloucester, has shown me better
things than your smoky old burner ever revealed.”

The second day in port was spent in receiving
visitors. Mrs. Roberts and her children camo first
to "shake hands," they said, “with the Spray”
No one was now afraid to come on board except
the poor old woman, who still maintained that the
Spray had Antichrist in the hold, if, indeed, he had
notalready gone ashore. The governor entertained
that evening, and kindly invited the “ destroyer of
the world” to speak for himself. This he did,
elaborating most effusively on the dangers of the
sea (which, after the manner of many of our frailest
mortals, he would have had smooth had he made
it); also by contrivances of light and darkness he
exhibited on the wall pictures of the places and
countries visited on the voyage (nothing like the
' countries, however, that he would have made), and
of the people seen, savage and other, frequently
groaning, “ Wicked world! Wicked world!” When
this was finished his Excellency the governor,
speaking words of thankfulness, distributed pieces
of gold.

A CONVENT IN THE HILLS 225

On the following day I aecompanied his Excel-
leney and family on a visit to San Gabriel, which
was up the country among the hills. The good
abbé of San Gabriel entertained us all royally at
the convent, and we remained his guests until the
following day. As I was leaving his place, the
abbé said, “Captain, I embrace you, and of what-
ever religion you may be, my wish is that you
succeed in making your voyage, and that our
Saviour the Christ be always with you!” To
this good man’s words I could only say, “ My dear
abbé, had all religionists been so liberal there would
have been less bloodshed in the world.”

At Rodriguez one may now find every conve-
nience for filling pure and wholesome water in any
quantity, Governor Roberts having built a reser-
voir in the hills, above the village, and laid pipes
to the jetty, where, at the time of my visit, thera
were five and a half feet at high tide. In former
years well-water was used, and more or less sickness
occurred from it. Beef may be had in any quantity
on the island, and at a moderate price. Sweet po-
tatoes were plentiful and cheap; the large sack of
them that I bought there for about four shillings
kept unusually well. I simply stored them in the
sloop’s dry hold. Of fruits, pomegranates were
most plentiful; for two shillings I obtained a large
sack of them, as many as a donkey could pack
from the orchard, which, by the way, was planted
by nature herself.

CHAPTER XVII

A slean bill of health at Mauritius — Sailing the voyage over again
in the opera-house — A newly discovered plant named in honor
of the Spray’s skipper — A party of young ladies out for a sail—
A bivouac on deck — A warm reception at Durban — A friendly
eross-examination by Henry M. Stanley — Three wise Boers seek
proof of the flatness of the earth — Leaving South Afriea.

N the 16th of September, after eight restful
days at Rodriguez, the mid-ocean land of
plenty, I set sail, and on the 19th arrived at Mau-
ritius, anchoring at quarantine about noon. The
sloop was towed in later on the same day by the
doctor's launch, after he was satisfied that I had
mustered all the crew for inspection. Of this he
seemed in doubt until he examined the papers,
which called for a crew of one all told from port
to port, throughout the voyage. Then finding that
I had been well enough to come thus far alone, he
gave me pratique without further ado. "There was
still another official visit for the Spray to pass
farther in the harbor. The governor of Rodriguez,
who had most kindly given me, besides a regular
mail, private letters of introduction to friends, told
me I should meet, first of all, Mr. Jenkins of the
postal service, a good man. “How do you do, Mr.
Jenkins?” cried I, as his boat swung alongside.
“You don’t know me,” he said. “Why not?” I
226

A CLEAN BILL OF HEALTH AT MAURITIUS 227

The Spray at Mauritius.

replied. “From where is the sloop?” “From
around the world,” I again replied, very solemnly.
“And alone?” “Yes; why not?” “And you
know me?” “Three thousand years ago,” cried
I, “when you and I had a warmer job than we
have now” (even this was hot). “You were then
Jenkinson, but if you have changed your name
I don’t blame you for that.” Mr. Jenkins, for-

228 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

bearing soul, entered into the spirit of the jest,
which served the Spray a good turn, for on the
strength of this tale it got out that if any one
should go on board after dark the devil would get
him at once. And so I could leave the Spray with-
out the fear of her being robbed at night. The
cabin, to be sure, was broken into, but it was done
in daylight, and the thieves got no more than a
box of smoked herrings before “Tom” Ledson, one
of the port officials, caught them red-handed, as it
were, and sent them to jail. This was discourag-
ing to pilferers, for they feared Ledson more than
they feared Satan himself. Even Mamode Hajee
Ayoob, who was the day-watehman on board,— till
an empty box fell over in the cabin and frightened
him out of his wits,— could not be hired to watch
nights, or even till the sun went down. “ Sahib,”
he cried, “there is no need of it,” and what he said
was perfectly true.

At Mauritius, where I drew a long breath, the
Spray rested her wings, it being the season of fine
weather. The hardships of the voyage, if there had
been any, were now computed by officers of experi-
ence as nine tenths finished, and yet somehow I
could not forget that the United States was still a
long way off.

The kind people of Mauritius, to make me richer
and happier, rigged up the opera-house, which they
had named the “Ship Pantai”! All decks and no
bottom was this ship, but she was as stiff as a
church. They gave me free use of it while I talked
over the Spray’s adventures. His Honor the mayor

1 Guinea-hen.

SAILING THE VOYAGE IN THE OPERA-HOUSE 229

introduced me to his Exeelleney the governor from
the poop-deck of the Pantai. In this way I was
also introduced again to our good consul, General
John P. Campbell, who had already introduced me
to his Excellency. I was becoming well acquainted,
and was in for it now to sail the voyage over again.
How I got through the story I hardly know. It
was a hot night, and [could have choked the tailor
who made the coat I wore for this occasion. The
kind governor saw that I had done my part trying
to rig like a man ashore, and he invited me to
Government House at Reduit, where I found myself
among friends.

It was winter still off stormy Cape of Good Hope,
but the storms might whistle there. I determined
to see it out in milder Mauritius, visiting Rose Hill,
Curipepe, and other places on the island. 1 spent
a day with the elder Mr. Roberts, father of Gov-
ernor Roberts of Rodriguez, and with his friends
the Very Reverend Fathers O'Loughlin and McCar-
thy. Returning to the Spray by way of the great
flower conservatory near Moka, the proprietor,
having only that morning discovered a new and
hardy plant, to my great honor named it “Slocum,”
which he said Latinized it at once, saving him some
trouble on the twist of a word; and the good bota-
nist seemed pleased that I had come. How different
things are in different countries! In Boston, Massa-
chusetts, at that time, a gentleman, so I was told,
paid thirty thousand dollars to have a flower named
after his wife, and it was not a big flower either,
while “Slocum,” which came without the asking,
was bigger than a mangel-wurzel! `

230 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

I was royally entertained at Moka, as well as at
Reduit and other plaees — once by seven young
ladies, to whom I spoke of my inability to return
their hospitality except in my own poor way of
taking them on a sail in the sloop. “The very
thing! The very thing!” they all cried. “Then
please name the time,” I said, as meek as Moses.
“To-morrow!” they all cried. “ And, aunty, we
may go, may n't we, and we'll be real good for a
whole week afterward, aunty! Say yes, aunty
dear!” All this after saying ^ To-morrow”; for
girls in Mauritius are, after all, the same as our
girls in America; and their dear aunt said “ Me,
too” about the same as any really good aunt might
say in my own country.

I was then in a quandary, it having recurred to
me that on the very “to-morrow” I was to dine
with the harbor-master, Captain Wilson. How-
ever, I said to myself, “The Spray will run out
quickly into rough seas; these young ladies will
have mal de mer and a good time, and I ‘ll get in
early enough to be at the dinner, after all.” But
not a bit of it. We sailed almost out of sight of
Mauritius, and they just stood up and laughed at
seas tumbling aboard, while I was at the helm
making the worst weather of it I could, and spin-
ning yarns to the aunt about sea-serpents and
whales. But she, dear lady, when I had finished
with stories of monsters, only hinted at a basket
of provisions they had brought along, enough to
last a week, for I had told them about my wretched
steward.

The more the Spray tried to make these young

A PARTY OF YOUNG LADIES OUT FOR A SAIL 231

ladies seasick, the more they all clapped their hands
and said, “ How lovely it is!" and “ How beautifully
she skims over the sea!” and “ How beautiful our
island appears from the distance!” and they still
cried, “Go on!” We were fifteen miles or more
at sea before they ceased the eager cry, “Go on!”
Then the sloop swung round, I still hoping to be
back to Port Louis in time to keep my appoint-
ment. The Spray reached the island quickly, and
flew along the coast fast enough; but I made a
mistake in steering along the coast on the way
home, for as we came abreast of Tombo Bay it
enchanted my crew. “Oh, let ’s anchor here !?
they cried. To this no sailor in the world would
have said nay. The sloop eame to anchor, ten
minutes later, as they wished, and a young man on
the cliff abreast, waving his hat, cried, “ Vive la
Spray!” My passengers said, “ Aunty, may n't
we have a swim in the surf along the shore?”
Just then the harbor-master’s launch hove in sight,
coming out to meet us; but it was too late to get
the sloop into Port Louis that night. The launch
was in time, however, to land my fair crew for a
swim; but they were determined not to desert the
ship. Meanwhile I prepared a roof for the night
on deck with the sails, and a Bengali man-servant
arranged the evening meal. That night the Spray
rode in Tombo Bay with her precious freight.
Next morning bright and early, even before the
stars were gone, I awoke to hear praying on
deck.

The port officers’ launch reappeared later in the
morning, this time with Captain Wilson himself or

282 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

board, to try his luck in getting the Spray into port,
for he had heard of our predicament. It was worth
something to hear a friend tell afterward how ear-
nestly the good harbor-master of Mauritius said,
“JT 'll find the Spray and Ill get her into port.” A
merry erew he discovered on her. 'l'hey eould hoist
sails like old tars, and could trim them, too. They
could tell all about the ship’s “hoods,” and one
should have seen them clap a bonnet on the jib.
Like the deepest of deep-water sailors, they could
heave the lead, and — as I hope to see Mauritius
again !— any of them could have put the sloop in
stays. No ship ever had a fairer erew.

The voyage was the event of Port Louis; such a
thing as young ladies sailing about the harbor,
even, was almost unheard of before.

While at Mauritius the Spray was tendered the
use of the military dock free of charge, and was
thoroughly refitted by the port authorities. My
sincere gratitude is also due other friends for
many things needful for the voyage put on board,
including bags of sugar from some of the famous
old plantations.

The favorable season now set in, and thus well
equipped, on the 26th of October, the Spray put to
sea. As I sailed before a light wind the island
receded slowly, and on the following day I could
still see the Puce Mountain near Moka. The
Spray arrived next day off Galets, Réunion, and a
pilot came out and spoke her. I handed him a
Mauritius paper and continued on my voyage; for
rollers were running heavily at the time, and it was
not practicable to make a landing. From Réunion

A BIVOUAC ON DECK 238

I shaped a course direct for Cape St. Mary, Mada-
gascar.

The sloop was now drawing near the limits of
the trade-wind, and the strong breeze that had car-
ried her with free sheets the many thousands of
miles from Sandy Cape, Australia, fell lighter each
day until October 30, when it was altogether calm,
and a motionless sea held her in a hushed world.
I furled the sails at evening, sat down on deck, and
enjoyed the vast stillness of the night.

October 31 a light east-northeast breeze sprang
up, and the sloop passed Cape St. Mary about noon.
On the 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th of November, in the
Mozambique Channel, she experienced a hard gale
of wind from the southwest. Here the Spray suf-
fered as much as she did anywhere, except off Cape
Horn. "The thunder and lightning preceding this
gale were very heavy. From this point until the
sloop arrived off the coast of Africa, she encoun-
tered a succession of gales of wind, which drove
her about in many directions, but on the 17th of
November she arrived at Port Natal.

This delightful place is the commercial center of
the “ Garden Colony,” Durban itself, the city, being
the continuation of a garden. The signalman from
the bluff station reported the Spray fifteen miles off.
The wind was freshening, and when she was within
eight miles he said: * The Spray is shortening sail;
the mainsail was reefed and set in ten minutes.
One man is doing all the work."

This item of news was printed three minutes
later in a Durban morning journal, which was
handed to me when I arrived in port. I could not

234 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

verify the time it had taken to reef the sail, for, as
I have already said, the minute-hand of my time-
piece was gone. I only knew that I reefed as
quickly as I could.

The same paper, commenting on the voyage, said:
“ Judging from the stormy weather which has pre-
vailed off this coast during the past few weeks, the
Spray must have had a very stormy voyage from
Mauritius to Natal? Doubtless the weather would
have been called stormy by sailors in any ship, but
it caused the Spray no more inconvenience than the
delay natural to head winds generally.

The question of how I sailed the sloop alone, often
asked, is best answered, perhaps, by a Durban news-
paper. I would shrink from repeating the editor’s
words but for the reason that undue estimates have
been made of the amount of skill and energy re-
quired to sail a sloop of even the Spray’s small ton-
nage. I heard a man who called himself a sailor
say that “it would require three men to do what it
was claimed” that I did alone, and what I found
perfectly easy to do over and over again; and I
have heard that others made similar nonsensical
remarks, adding that I would work myself to death.
But here is what the Durban paper said:

As briefly noted yesterday, the Spray, with a crew of
one man, arrived at this port yesterday afternoon on her
cruise round the world. The Spray made quite an auspl-
cious entrance to Natal. Her commander sailed his craft
right up the channel past the main wharf, and dropped
his anchor near the old Forerunner in the creek, before
any one had a chance to get on board. The Spray was
naturally an obiect of great curiosity to the Point people,

A WARM RECEPTION AT DURBAN 236

amd her arrival was witnessed by a large erowd. The
skilful manner in which Captain Slocum steered his craft
about the vessels which were occupying the waterway was
a treat to witness.

The Spray was not sailing in among greenhorns
when she came to Natal. When she arrived off the
port the pilot-ship, a fine, able steam-tuy, came out

Captain Joshua Slocum.

to meet her, and led the way in across the bar, for
it was blowing a smart gale and was too rough for
the sloop to be towed with safety. The trick of
going in I learned by watching the steamer; it
was simply to keep on the windward side of the
channel and take the combers end on.

I found that Durban supported two yacht-clubs,
both of them full of enterprise. I met all the mem-
bers of both clubs, and sailed in the crack yacht
Florence of the Royal Natal, with Captain Sprad-
brow and the Right Honorable Harry Escombe,
premier of the colony. The yachts center-board

236 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

plowed furrows through the mud-banks, whieh, ae-
eording to Mr. Eseombe, Spradbrow afterward
planted with potatoes. The Florence, however, won
races while she tilled the skipper'sland. After our
sail on the Florence Mr. Escombe offered to sail the
Spray round the Cape of Good Hope for me, and
hinted at his famous eribbage-board to while away
the hours. Spradbrow, in retort, warned me of it.
Said he, * You would be played out of the sloop
before you could round the cape.” By others it
was not thought probable that the premier of Natal
would play eribbage off the Cape of Good Hope to
win even the Spray.

It was a matter of no small pride to me in South
Africa to find that American humor was never at
a discount, and one of the best American stories I
ever heard was told by the premier. At Hotel
Royal one day, dining with Colonel Saunderson,
M. P., his son, and Lieutenant Tipping, I met Mr.
Stanley. The great explorer was just from Pre-
toria, and had already as good as flayed President
Krüger with his trenchant pen. But that did not
signify, for everybody has a whack at Oom Paul,
and no one in the world seems to stand the joke
better than he, not even the Sultan of Turkey him-
self. The colonel introduced me to the explorer,
and I hauled close to the wind, to go slow, for Mr.
Stanley was a nautical man once himself,—on the
Nyanza, I think,—and of course my desire was to
appear in the best light before a man of his expe-
rience. He looked me over carefully, and said,
“What an example of patience!” “Patience is
ail that is required," I ventured to reply. He then

CROSS-EXAMINATION BY HENRY M. STANLEY 237

asked if my vessel had water-tight compartments,
l explained that she was all water-tight and all
compartment. “ What if she should strike a rock?”
he asked. “Compartments would not save her if
she should hit the rocks lying along her course,” said
I; adding, “she must be kept away from the rocks.”
After a considerable pause Mr. Stanley asked,
“ What if a swordfish should pierce her hull with
its sword?” Of course I had thought of that as
one of the dangers of the sea, and also of the chance
of being struck by lightning. In the case of the
swordfish, I ventured to say that “the first thing
would be to secure the sword.” The colonel invited
me to dine with the party on the following day,
that we might go further into this matter, and so I
had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Stanley a second
time, but got no more hints in navigation from the
famous explorer.

It sounds odd to hear scholars and statesmen say
the world is flat; but it is a fact that three Boers
favored by the opinion of President Kriiger pre-
pared a work to support that contention. While
Iwas at Durban they came from Pretoria to obtain
data from me, and they seemed annoyed when I
told them that they could not prove it by my ex-
perience. With the advice to call up some ghost
of the dark ages for research, I went ashore, and
left these three wise men poring over the Spray’s
track on a chart of the world, which, however,
proved nothing to them, for it was on Mercator’s
projection, and behold, it was “flat.” The next
morning I met one of the party in a clergyman’s
garb, carrying a large Bible, not different from the

238 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

one I had read. He tackled me, saying, “If you
respect the Word of God, you must admit that the
world is flat." “If the Word of God stands on a flat
world—” I began. “What!” cried he, losing him-
self in a passion, and making as if he would run
me through with an assagai. “ What!" he shouted
in astonishment and rage, while I jumped aside to
dodge the imaginary weapon. Had this good but
misguided fanatic been armed with a real weapon,
the crew of the Spray would have died a martyr
there and then. The next day, seeing him across
the street, I bowed and made curves with my
hands. He responded with a level, swimming
movement of his hands, meaning “the world is
flat" A pamphlet by these Transvaal geographers,
made up of arguments from sources high and low
to prove their theory, was mailed to me before I
sailed from Africa on my last stretch around the
globe.

While'I feebly portray the ignorance of these
learned men, I have great admiration for their phy-
sical manhood. Much that I saw first and last of
the Transvaal and the Boers was admirable. It is
well known that they are the hardest of fighters,
and as generous to the fallen as they are brave be-
fore the foe. Real stubborn bigotry with them is
only found among old fogies, and will die a natural
death, and that, too, perhaps long before we our-
selves are entirely free from bigotry. Education
in the Transvaal is by no means neglected, English
as well as Dutch being taught to all that can afford
both; but the tariff duty on English school-books
is heavy, and from necessity the poorer people

LEAVING SOUTH AFRICA 239

stick to the Transvaal Dutch and their flat world,
just as in Samoa and other islands a mistaken
policy has kept the natives down to Kanaka.

I visited many publie schools at Durban, and
had the pleasure of meeting many bright children.

But all fine things must end, and December 14,
1897, the “crew” of the Spray, after having a fine
time in Natal, swung the sloop’s dinghy in on deck,
and sailed with a morning land-wind, which car-
ried her clear of the bar, and again she was “ off on
her alone,” as they say in Australia.

CHAPTER XVIII

Rounding the ** Cape of Storms” in olden time —A rough Christmas
— The Spray ties up for a three months? rest at Cape Town — A
railway trip to the Transvaal— President Krüger's odd definition
of the Spray's voyage— His terse sayings — Distinguished guests
on the Spray — Cocoanut fiber as a padlock—Courtesies from
the admiral of the Queen's navy — Off for St. Helena — Land
in sight.

HE Cape of Good Hope was now the most prom-
inent point to pass. From Table Bay I could
eount on the aid of brisk trades, and then the
Spray would soon be at home. On the first day out
from Durban it fell calm, and I sat thinking about
these things and the end of the voyage. The dis-
tance to Table Bay, where I intended to call, was
about eight hundred miles over what might prove
arough sea. The early Portuguese navigators, en-
dowed with patience, were more than sixty-nine
years struggling to round this eape before they
got as far as Algoa Bay, and there the crew muti-
nied. They landed on a small island, now called
Santa Cruz, where they devoutly set up the cross,
and swore they would cut the captain’s throat if
he attempted to sail farther. Beyond this they
thought was the edge of the world, which they too
believed was flat; and fearing that their ship
would sail over the brink of it, they compelled
Captain Diaz, their commander, to retrace his
240

A ROUGH CHRISTMAS 241

course, all being only too glad to get home. A
year later, we are told, Vasco da Gama sailed
successfully round the “Cape of Storms,” as the
Cape of Good Hope was then called, and discov-
ered Natal on Christmas or Natal day; hence the
name. From this point the way to India was easy.

Gales of wind sweeping round the cape even
now were frequent enough, one occurring, on an
average, every thirty-six hours; but one gale was
much the same as another, with no more serious
result than to blow the Spray along on her course
when it was fair, or to blow her back somewhat
when it was ahead. On Christmas, 1897, I came to
the pitch of the cape. On this day the Spray was
trying to stand on her head, and she gave me every
reason to believe that she would accomplish the
feat before night. She began very early in the
morning to pitch and toss about in a most unusual
manner, and I have to record that, while I was at
the end of the bowsprit reefing the jib, she ducked
me under water three times for a Christmas box. I
got wet and did not like it a bit: never in any other
sea was I put under more than once in the same
short space of time, say three minutes. A large
English steamer passing ran up the signal, “ Wish-
ing you a Merry Christmas.” I think the captain
was a humorist; his own ship was throwing her
propeller out of water.

Two days later, the Spray, having recovered the
distance lost in the gale, passed Cape Agulhas in
company with the steamship Scotsman, now with a
fair wind. The keeper of the light on Agulhas ex-
changed signals with the Spray as she passed, and

242 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

afterward wrote me at New York congratulations
on the eompletion of the voyage. He seemed to
think the incident of two ships of so widely differ-
ent types passing his cape together worthy of a
plaee on eanvas, and he went about having the
picture made. So I gathered from his letter. At
lonely stations like this hearts grow responsive
and sympathetic, and even poetic. This feeling
was shown toward the Spray along many a rugged
coast, and reading many a kind signal thrown
out to her gave one a grateful feeling for all the
world.

One more gale of wind came down upon the
Spray from the west after she passed Cape Agu-
lhas, but that one she dodged by getting into
Simons Bay. When it moderated she beat around
the Cape of Good Hope, where they say the Flying
Dutchman is still sailing. The voyage then seemed
as good as finished; from this time on I knew that
all, or nearly all, would be plain sailing.

Here I crossed the dividing-line of weather. To
the north it was clear and settled, while south it
was humid and squally, with, often enough, as I
have said, a treacherous gale. From the recent
hard weather the Spray ran into a calm under
Table Mountain, where she lay quietly till the gen-
erous sun rose over the land and drew a breeze in
from the sea.

The steam-tug Alert, then out looking for ships,
came to the Spray off the Lion’s Rump, and in lieu
of a larger ship towed her into port. The sea being
smooth, she came to anchor in the bay off the city
of Cape Town, where she remained a day, simply

PRESIDENT KRUGER’S ODD DEFINITION 243

to rest clear of the bustle of commerce. The good
harbor-master sent his steam-launch to bring the
sloop to a berth in dock at once, but I preferred to
remain for one day alone, in the quiet of a smooth
sea, enjoying the retrospect of the passage of the
two great capes. On the following morning the
Spray sailed into the Alfred Dry-docks, where she
remained for about three months in the care of the
port authorities, while I traveled the country over
from Simons Town to Pretoria, being accorded by
the colonial government a free railroad pass over
all the land.

The trip to Kimberley, Johannesburg, and Pre-
toria was a pleasant one. At the last-named place
I met Mr. Krüger, the Transvaal president. His
Excellency received me cordially enough; but my
friend Judge Beyers, the gentleman who presented
me, by mentioning that I was on a voyage around
the world, unwittingly gave great offense to the
venerable statesman, which we both regretted
deeply. Mr. Krüger corrected the judge rather
sharply, reminding him that the world is flat. * You
don’t mean round the world,” said the president;
“it is impossible! You mean in the world. Im.
possible!” he said, “impossible!” and not another
word did he utter either to the judge or tome. The
judge looked at me and I looked at the judge, who
should have known his ground, so to speak, and
Mr. Kriiger glowered at us both. My friend the
judge seemed embarrassed, but I was delighted ;
the incident pleased me more than anything else
that could have happened. It was a nugget of
information quarried out of Oom Paul, some of

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COWIE

DISTINGUISHED GUESTS ON THE “SPRAY” 245

whose sayings are famous. Of the English he
said, “ They took first my coat and then my trou-
sers.” He also said, “Dynamite is the corner-stone
of the South African Republic.” Only unthinking
people call President Krüger dull.

Soon after my arrival at the cape, Mr. Krüger's
friend Colonel Saunderson,! who had arrived from
Durban some time before, invited me to Newlands
Vineyard, where I met many agreeable people.
His Excellency Sir Alfred Milner, the governor,
found time to come aboard with a party. The
governor, after making a survey of the deck,
found a seat on a box in my cabin; Lady Muriel
sat on a keg, and Lady Saunderson sat by the
skipper at the wheel, while the colonel, with his
kodak, away in the dinghy, took snap shots of the
sloop and her distinguished visitors. Dr. David
Gill, astronomer royal, who was of the party,
invited me the next day to the famous Cape
Observatory. An hour with Dr. Gill was an hour
among the stars. His discoveries in stellar pho-
tography are well known. Heshowed me the great
astronomical clock of the observatory, and I
showed him the tin clock on the Spray, and we
went over the subject of standard time at sea, and
how it was found from the deck of the little sloop
without the aid of a clock of any kind. Later it
was advertised that Dr. Gill would preside at a
talk about the voyage of the Spray: that alone
secured for me a full house. The hall was packed,
and many were not able to get in. This success

1 Colonel Saunderson was Mr. Kriiger’s very best friend, inasmuch as he
advised the president to avast mounting guns.

246 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

brought me suffieient money for all my needs in
port and for the homeward voyage.

After visiting Kimberley and Pretoria, and find-
ing the Spray all right in the docks, I returned to
Worcester and Wellington, towns famous for col-
leges and seminaries, passed coming in, still travel-
ing as the guest of the colony. The ladies of
all these institutions of learning wished to know
how one might sail round the world alone, which
I thought augured of sailing-mistresses in the
future instead of sailing-masters. It will come
to that yet if we men-folk keep on saying we
“ can’t.”

On the plains of Africa I passed through hun-
dreds of miles of rich but still barren land, save for
scrub-bushes, on which herds of sheep were brows-
ing. The bushes grew about the length of a sheep
apart, and they, I thought, were rather long of
body; but there was still room for all. My long-
ing for a foothold on land seized upon me here,
where so much of it lay waste; but instead of
remaining to plant forests and reclaim vegetation,
I returned again to the Spray at the Alfred Docks,
where I found her waiting for me, with everything
in order, exactly as I had left her.

I have often been asked how it was that my ves-
sel and all appurtenances were not stolen in the
various ports where I left her for days together
without a watchman in charge. This is just how it
was: The Spray seldom fell among thieves. At the
Keeling Islands, at Rodriguez, and at many such
places, a wisp of cocoanut fiber in the door-latch,
to indicate that the owner was away, secured the

COURTESIES FROM THE ADMIRAL 247

goods against even a longing glance. But when I£
came to a great island nearer home, stout locks
were needed ; the first night in port things which

Captain Slocum, Sir Alfred Milner (with the tall hat), and Colonel
Saunderson, M. P., on the bow of the Spray at Cape Town.

I had always left uncovered disappeared, as if the
deck on which they were stowed had been swept

by a sea. |
A pleasant visit from Admiral Sir Harry Raw-

248 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

son of the Royal Navy and his family brought
to an end the Spray's social relations with the
Cape of Good Hope. The admiral, then com-
manding the South African Squadron, and now in
command of the great Channel fleet, evineed the
greatest interest in the diminutive Spray and her
behavior off Cape Horn, where he was not an entire
stranger. I have to admit that I was delighted
with the trend of Admiral Rawson’s questions, and
that I profited by some of his suggestions, not-
withstanding the wide differenee in our respective
commands.

On March 26, 1898, the Spray sailed from South
Africa, the land of distances and pure air, where
she had spent a pleasant and profitable time. The
steam-tug Tigre towed her to sea from her wonted
berth at the Alfred Docks, giving her a good offing.
The light morning breeze, which scantily filled her
sails when the tug let go the tow-line, soon died
away altogether, and left her riding over a heavy
swell, in full view of Table Mountain and the high
peaks of the Cape of Good Hope. For a while
the grand scenery served to relieve the monotony.
One of the old cireumnavigators (Sir Francis Drake,
I think), when he first saw this magnificent pile,
sang, *'T is the fairest thing and the grandest cape
I've seen in the whole circumference of the earth.”

The view was certainly fine, but one has no wish
to linger long to look in a calm at anything, and
I was glad to note, finally, the short heaving sea,
precursor of the wind which followed on the second
day. Seals playing about the Spray all day, before
the breeze came, looked with large eyes when, at

OFF FOR ST. HELENA 249

evening, she sat no longer like a lazy bird with
folded wings. They parted company now, and the
Spray soon sailed the highest peaks of the moun-
tains out of sight, and the world changed from a mere

“ Reading day and night."

panoramie view to the light of a homeward-bound
voyage. Porpoises and dolphins, and such other
fishes as did not mind making a hundred and fifty
miles a day, were her companions now for several

250 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

days. The wind was from the southeast; this suited
the Spray well, and she ran along steadily at her best
speed, while I dipped into the new books given me
at the cape, reading day and night. March 30 was
for me a fast-day in honor of them. I read on,
oblivious of hunger or wind or sea, thinking that
all was going well, when suddenly a comber rolled
over the stern and slopped saucily into the cabin,
wetting the very book I was reading. Evidently it
was time to put in a reef, that she might not wal-
10w on her course.

Mareh 31 the fresh southeast wind had come to
stay. The Spray was running under a single-
reefed mainsail, a whole jib, and a flying-jib
besides, set on the Vailima bamboo, while I was
reading Stevenson's delightful “Inland Voyage.”
The sloop was again doing her work smoothly,
hardly rolling at all, but just leaping along among
the white horses, a thousand gamboling porpoises
keeping her company on all sides. She was again
among her old friends the flying-fish, interesting
denizens of the sea. Shooting out of the waves
like arrows, and with outstretched wings, they
sailed on the wind in graceful curves; then falling
till again they touched the crest of the waves to wet
their delicate wings and renew the flight. They
made merry the livelong day. One of the joyful
sights on the ocean of a bright day is the continual
flight of these interesting fish.

One could not be lonely in a sea like this. More-
over, the reading of delightful adventures enhanced
the scene. I was now in the Spray and on the
Oise in the Arethusa at one and the same time.

LAND IN SIGHT 251

And so the Spray reeled off the miles, showing a
good run every day til April 11, whieh came al-
most before I knew it. Very early that morning I
"as awakened by ihat rare bird, the booby, with
its harsh quack, which I recognized at once as
a eall to go on deck; it was as much as to say,
* Skipper, there 's land in sight?" I tumbled out
quickly, and sure enough, away ahead in the dim
twilight, about twenty miles off, was St. Helena.

My first impulse was to call out, ^Oh, what a
speck in the sea!” It is in reality nine miles in
length and two thousand eight hundred and
twenty-three feet in height. I reached for a bottle
of port-wine out of the locker, and took a long pull
from it to the health of my invisible helmsman —
the pilot of the Ponta.

CHAPTER XIX

In the isle of Napoleon's exile — Two lectures — A guest in the ghost-
room at Plantation House — An excursion to historie Longwood
— Coffee in the husk, and a goat to shell it —' The Spray's ill luck
with animals—A prejudice against small dogs — A rat, the Boston
spider, and the cannibal cricket — Ascension Island.

T was about noon when the Spray came to anchor
off Jamestown, and “all hands” at once went
ashore to pay respects to his Excellency the gov-
ernor of the island, Sir R. A. Sterndale. His Ex-
cellency, when I landed, remarked that it was not
often, nowadays, that a cireumnavigator came his
way, and he cordially welcomed me, and arranged
that I should tell about the voyage, first at Garden
Hall to the people of Jamestown, and then at
Plantation House— the governor's residence, which
is in the hills a mile or two back—to his Excel-
lency and the officers of the garrison and their
friends. Mr. Poole, our worthy consul, introduced
me at the castle, and in the course of his remarks
asserted that the sea-serpent was a Yankee.

Most royally was the crew of the Spray enter-
tained by the governor. I remained at Plantation
House a couple of days, and one of the rooms in
the mansion, called the “ west room,” being haunted,

the butler, by command of his Excellency, put me
252

IN THE ISLE OF NAPOLEON'S EXILE 253

ap in that—like a prince. Indeed, to make sure
that no mistake had been made, his Excellency
came later to see that I was in the right room, and
to tell me all about the ghosts he had seen or heard
of. He had discovered all but one, and wishing
me pleasant dreams, he hoped I might have the
honor of a visit from the unknown one of the west
room. For the rest of the chilly night I kept the
candle burning, and often looked from under the
blankets, thinking that maybe I should meet the
great Napoleon face to face; but I saw only furni-
ture, and the horseshoe that was nailed over the
door opposite my bed.

St. Helena has been an island of tragedies —
tragedies that have been lost sight of in wailing
over the Corsican. On the second day of my visit
the governor took me by carriage-road through the
turns over the island. At one point of our journey
the road, in winding around spurs and ravines,
formed a perfect W within the distance of a few
rods. The roads, though tortuous and steep, were
fairly good, and I was struck with the amount of
labor it must have cost to build them. The air on
the heights was cool and bracing. It is said that,
since hanging for trivial offenses went out of
fashion, no one has died there, except from falling
over the cliffs in old age, or from being crushed by
stones rolling on them from the steep mountains!
Witches at one time were persistent at St. Helena,
as with us in America in the days of Cotton Mather.
At the present day crime is rare in the island.
While I was there, Governor Sterndale, in token
of the fact that not one criminal case had come to

254 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

court within the year, was presented with a pair
of white gloves by the officers of justice.

Returning from the governor's house to James-
town, I drove with Mr. Clark, a countryman of
mine, to * Longwood," the home of Napoleon. M.
Morilleau, French consular agent in charge, keeps
the place respectable and the buildings in good re-
pair. His family at Longwood, consisting of wife
and grown daughters, are natives of courtly and
refined manners, and spend here days, months, and
years of contentment, though they have never seen
the world beyond the horizon of St. Helena.

On the 20th of April the Spray was again ready
for sea. Before going on board I took luncheon
with the governor and his family at the castle.
Lady Sterndale had sent a large fruit-cake, early
in the morning, from Plantation House, to be taken
along on the voyage. It was a great high-decker,
and I ate sparingly of it, as I thought, but it did
not keep as I had hoped it would. I ate the last
of it along with my first cup of coffee at Antigua,
West Indies, which, after all was quite a record.
The one my own sister made me at the little island
in the Bay of Fundy, at the first of the voyage,
kept about the same length of time, namely, forty-
two days.

After luncheon a royal mail was made up for
Ascension, the island next on my way. "Then Mr.
Poole and his daughter paid the Spray a farewell
visit, bringing me a basket of fruit. It was late in
the evening before the anchor was up, and I bore
off for the west, loath to leave my new friends.
But fresh winds filled the sloop's sails once more,

JOFFEE IN THE HUSK, AND A GOAT TO SHELL IT 255

and I watched the beacon-light at Plantation House,
the governor's parting signal for the Spray, till
the island faded in the darkness astern and became
one with the night, and by midnight the light itself
had disappeared below the horizon.

When morning eame there was no land in sight,
but the day went on the same as days before, save
for one small incident. Governor Sterndale had
given me à bag of coffee in the husk, and Clark,
the American, in an evil moment, had put a goat
on board, “to butt the sack and hustle the coffee-
beans out of the pods.” He urged that the animal,
besides being useful, would be as companionable
as a dog. I soon found that my sailing-com-
panion, this sort of dog with horns, had to be tied
up entirely. The mistake I made was that I did
not chain him to the mast instead of tying him
with grass ropes less securely, and this I learned
to my eost. Except for the first day, before the
beast got his sea-legs on, I had no peace of mind.
After that, actuated by a spirit born, maybe, of his
pasturage, this inearnation of evi] threatened to
devour everything from flying-jib to stern-davits.
He was the worst pirate I met on the whole voy-
age. He began depredations by eating my chart
of the West Indies, in the cabin, one day, while I
was about my work forard, thinking that the
eritter was securely tied on deck by the pumps.
Alas! there was not a rope in the sloop proof
against that goat’s awful teeth!

It was clear from the very first that I was hav-
ing no luck with animals on board. There was
the tree-crab from the Keeling Islands. No sooner

256 SAILING ALONE AROUND 'THE WORLD

had it got a claw through its prison-box than my
sea-jacket, hanging within reach, was torn to rib-
bons. Encouraged by this success, it smashed the
box open and escaped into my cabin, tearing up
things generally, and finally threatening my life in
the dark. I had hoped to bring the creature home
alive, but this did not prove feasible. Next the
goat devoured my straw hat, and so when I ar-
rived in port I had nothing to wear ashore on my
head. This last unkind stroke decided his fate.
On the 27th of April the Spray arrived at Ascen-
sion, which is garrisoned by a man-of-war crew,
and the boatswain of the island came on board.
As he stepped out of his boat the mutinous goat
climbed into it, and defied boatswain and crew. I
hired them to land the wretch at once, which they
were only too willing to do, and there he fell into
the hands of a most excellent Scotchman, with the
chances that he would never get away. I was des-
tined to sail once more into the depths of solitude,
but these experiences had no bad effect upon me;
on the contrary, a spirit of charity and even be-
nevolence grew stronger in my nature through the
meditations of these supreme hours on the sea.

In the loneliness of the dreary country about
Cape Horn I found myself in no mood to make one
life.less in the world, except in self-defense, and as
I sailed this trait of the hermit character grew till
the mention of killing food-animals was revolting
to me. However wellI may have enjoyed a chicken
stew afterward at Samoa, a new self rebelled at the
thought suggested there of carrying chickens to be
slain for my table on the voyage, and Mrs. Steven-

A PREJUDICE AGAINST SMALL DOGS 257

son, hearing my protest, agreed with me that to kill
the companions of my voyage and eat them would
be indeed next to murder and cannibalism.

As to pet animals, there was no room for a noble
large dog on the Spray on so long a voyage, and a
small eur was for many years associated in my
mind with hydrophobia. I witnessed once the
death of a sterling young German from that dread-
ful disease, and about the same time heard of the
death, also by hydrophobia, of the young gentleman
who had just written a line of insurance in his
company’s books for me. I have seen the whole
crew of a ship scamper up the rigging to avoid a
dog racing about the decks in a fit. It would
never do, I thought, for the crew of the Spray to
take a canine risk, and with these just prejudices
indelibly stamped on my mind, I have, I am afraid,
answered impatiently too often the query, * Did wt
you have a dog?” with, ^I and the dog would n't
have been very long in the same boat, in any sense."
A. eat would have been a harmless animal, I dare
say, but there was nothing for puss to do on board,
and she is an unsociable animal at best. True, a
rat got into my vessel at the Keeling Cocos
Islands, and another at Rodriguez, along with a
centiped stowed away in the hold; but one of them
I drove out of the ship, and the other I caught.
This is how it was: for the first one with infinite
pains I made a trap, looking to its capture and de-
struction; but the wily rodent, not to be deluded,
took the hint and got ashore the day the thing was
completed.

It is, according to tradition, a most reassuring

258 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

sign to find rats coming to a ship, and I had a
mind to abide the knowing one of Rodriguez; but
a breach of discipline decided the matter against
him. While I slept one night, my ship sailing on,
he undertook to walk over me, beginning at the
erown of my head, concerning which I am always
sensitive. I sleep lightly. Before his impertinence
had got him even to my nose I cried “ Rat!” had
him by the tail, and threw him out of the compan-
lonway into the sea.

As for the centiped, I was not aware of its pres-
ence till the wretched insect, all feet and venom,
beginning, like the rat, at my head, wakened me by
a sharp bite on the sealp. This also was more
than I could tolerate. After a few applications of
kerosene the poisonous bite, painful at first, gave
me no further inconvenience.

From this on for a time no living thing dis-
turbed my solitude; no insect even was present in
my vessel, except the spider and his wife, from
Boston, now with a family of young spiders. No-
thing, I say, till sailing down the last streteh of the
Indian Ocean, where mosquitos eame by hundreds
from rain-water poured out of the heavens. Sim-
ply a barrel of rain-water stood on deck five days,
I think, in the sun, then musie began. I knew the
sound at once; it was the same as heard from
Alaska to New Orleans.

Again at Cape Town, while dining out one day,
I was taken with the song of a cricket, and Mr.
Branseombe, my host, volunteered to capture a
pair of them for me. They were sent on board
next day in a box labeled, * Pluto and Scamp.”

THE CANNIBAL CRICKET 259

Stowing them away in the binnacle in their own
snug box, I left them there without food till I got
to sea—a few days. I had never heard of a cricket
eating anything. It seems that Pluto was a can-
nibal, for only the wings of poor Scamp were visi-
ble when Í opened the lid, and they lay broken on
the floor of the prison-box. Even with Pluto it
had gone hard, for he lay on his back stark and
stiff, never to chirrup again.

Ascension Island, where the goat was marooned,
is called the Stone Frigate, R. N., and is rated
“tender” to the South African Squadron. It lies
in 7° 55’ south latitude and 14° 25’ west longitude,
being in the very heart of the southeast trade-
winds and about eight hundred and forty miles
from the coast of Liberia. It is a mass of volcanic
matter, thrown up from the bed of the ocean to the
height of two thousand eight hundred and eighteen
feet at the highest point above sea-level. It is a
strategie point, and belonged to Great Britain be-
fore it got cold. In the limited but rich soil at the
top of the island, among the clouds, vegetation has
taken root, and a little scientific farming is carried
on under the supervision of a gentleman from
Canada. Also a few cattle and sheep are pastured
there for the garrison mess. Water storage is
made on a large scale. In a word, this heap of
cinders and lava rock is stored and fortified, and
would stand a siege.

Verysoon after the Spray arrived I received a note
from Captain Blaxland, the commander of the island,
conveying his thanks for the royal mail brought
from St. Helena, and inviting me to luncheon with

260 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

him and his wife and sister at headquarters, not
far away. lt is hardly necessary to say that I
availed myself of the captain's hospitality at once.
A carriage was waiting at the jetty when I landed,
and a sailor, with à broad grin, led the horse care-
fully up the hill to the captain's house, as if I were
a lord of the admiralty, and a governor besides;
and he led it as carefully down again when I re-
turned. On the following day I visited the summit
among the clouds, the same team being provided,
and the same old sailor leading the horse. "There
was probably not a man on the island at that mo-
ment better able to walk than I. The sailor knew
that. I finally suggested that we change places.
“Let me take the bridle,” I said, “and keep the
horse from bolting.” “Great Stone Frigate!” he
exclaimed, as he burst into a laugh, “this ’ere ’oss
would wt bolt no faster nor a turtle. If I did n't
tow "im ’ard we'd never get into port? I walked
most of the way over the steep grades, whereupon
my guide, every inch a sailor, became my friend.
Arriving at the summit of the island, I met Mr.
Schank, the farmer from Canada, and his sister,
living very cozily in a house among the rocks, as
snug as conies, and as safe. He showed me over
the farm, taking me through a tunnel which led
from one field to the other, divided by an inacces-
sible spur of mountain. Mr. Schank said that he
had lost many cows and bullocks, as well as sheep,
from breakneck over the steep cliffs and precipices.
One cow, he said, would sometimes hook another
right over a precipice to destruction, and go on
feeding unconcernedly. It seemed that the ani-

ASCENSION ISLAND 261

mals on the island farm, like mankind in the wide
world, found 1t all too small.

On the 26th of April, while I was ashore, rollers
eame in which rendered launching a boat impossi-
ble. However, the sloop being securely moored to
a, buoy in deep water outside of all breakers, she
was safe, while I, in the best of quarters, listened
to well-told stories among the officers of the Stone
Frigate. On the evening of the 29th, the sea hav-
ing gone down, I went on board and made prepara-
tions to start again on my voyage early next day,
the boatswain of the island and his crew giving me
a hearty handshake as I embarked at the jetty.

For reasons of scientific interest, I invited in
mid-ocean the most thorough investigation con-
cerning the crew-list of the Spray. Very few had
challenged it, and perhaps few ever will do so
henceforth; but for the benefit of the few that may,
I wished to clench beyond doubt the fact that it
was not at all necessary in the expedition of a
sloop around the world to have more than one man
for the crew, all told, and that the Spray sailed
with only one person on board. And so, by ap-
pointment, Lieutenant Eagles, the executive officer,
in the morning, just as I was ready to sail, fumi-
gated the sloop, rendering it impossible for a person
to live concealed below, and proving that only one
person was on board when she arrived. A certifi-
eate to this effect, besides the official documents
from the many consulates, health offices, and eustom-
houses, will seem to many superfluous; but this
story of the voyage may find its way into hands
unfamiliar with the business of these offices and of

262 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

their ways of seeing that a vessel's papers, and,
above all, her bills of health, are in order.

The lieutenant/s certificate being made out, the
Spray, nothing loath, now filled away clear of
the sea-beaten rocks, and the trade-winds, com-
fortably cool and bracing, sent her flying along
on her course. On May 8, 1898, she crossed the
track, homeward bound, that she had made October
2, 1895, on the voyage out. She passed Fernando
de Noronha at night, going some miles south of it,
and so I did not see the island. I felt a content-
ment in knowing that the Spray had encircled the
globe, and even as an adventure alone I was in no
way discouraged as to its utility, and said to my-
self, “Let what will happen, the voyage is now on
record.” A period was made.

CHAPTER XX

In the favoring current off Cape St. Roque, Brazil — All at se» ~~
g g the Spanish-Ameriean war— An exchange of signals
with the battle-ship Oregon — Off Dreyfus's prison on Devil's
Island — Reappearance to the Spray of the north star — The light
on Trinidad — A charming introduction to Grenada — Talks to
friendly auditors.

N May 10 there was a great change in the con-
dition of the sea; there could be no doubt of
my longitude now, if any had before existed in my
mind. Strange and long-forgotten current ripples
pattered against the sloop’s sides in grateful music;
the tune arrested the car, and I sat quietly listen-
ing to it while the Spray kept on her course. By
these current ripples I was assured that she was
now off St. Roque and had struck the current which
sweeps around that cape. The trade-winds, we old
sailors say, produce this current, which, in its course
from this point forward, is governed by the coast-
line of Brazil, Guiana, Venezuela, and, as some
would say, by the Monroe Doctrine.

The trades had been blowing fresh for some time,
and the current, now at its height, amounted to
forty miles a day. This, added to the sloop’s run
by the log, made the handsome day’s work of one
hundred and eighty miles on several consecutive
days. I saw nothing of the coast of Brazil, though

263

264 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

I was not many leagues off and was always in the
Brazil current.

I did not know that war with Spain had been
declared, and that I might be liable, right there, to
meet the enemy and be captured. Many had told
me at Cape Town that, in their opinion, war was
inevitable, and they said: “The Spaniard will get
you! The Spaniard will get you!” To all this I
could only say that, even so, he would not get
much. Even in the fever-heat over the disaster
to the Maine I did not think there would be war;
but I am no politician. Indeed, I had hardly
given the matter a serious thought when, on the
14th of May, just north of the equator, and near
the longitude of the river Amazon, I saw first a
mast, with the Stars and Stripes floating from it,
rising astern as if poked up out of the sea, and then
rapidly appearing on the horizon, like a citadel, the
Oregon! As she came near I saw that the great
ship was flying the signals *C B T," which read,
“ Are there any men-of-war about?” Right under
these flags, and larger than the Spray’s mainsail,
so it appeared, was the yellowest Spanish flag I
ever saw. lt gave me nightmare some time after
when I reflected on it in my dreams.

I did not make out the Oregows signals till she
passed ahead, where I could read them better, for
she was two miles away, and I had no binoculars.
When I had read her flags I hoisted the signal “No,”
for I had not seen any Spanish men-of-war; I had
not been looking for any. My final signal, “Let
us keep together for mutual protection," Captain
Clark did not seem to regard as necessary. Per-

*uofo.s) eu £q possed fip4ds eur,

266 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

haps my small flags were not made out; anyhow,
the Oregon steamed on with a rush, looking for
Spanish men-of-war, as I learned afterward. The
Oregon’s great flag was dipped beautifully three
times to the Spray's lowered flag as she passed on.
Both had crossed the line only a few hours before.
I pondered long that night over the probability of
à war risk now coming upon the Spray after she
had cleared all, or nearly all, the dangers of the sea,
but finally a strong hope mastered my fears.

On the 17th of May, the Spray, coming out of a
storm at daylight, made Devil's Island, two points
on the lee bow, not far off. 'The wind was still
blowing a stiff breeze on shore. I could elearly see
the dark-gray buildings on the island as the sloop
brought it abeam. No flag or sign of life was seen
on the dreary place.

Later in the day a French bark on the port tack,
making for Cayenne, hove in sight, close-hauled
on the wind. She was falling to leeward fast.
The Spray was also closed-hauled, and was lugging
on sail to secure an offing on the starboard tack, a
heavy swell in the night having thrown her too
near the shore, and now I considered the matter of
supplicating a change of wind. I had already en-
joyed my share of favoring breezes over the great
oceans, and I asked myself if it would be right to
have the wind turned now all into my sails while
the Frenchman was bound the other way. A head
current, which he stemmed, together with a scant
wind, was bad enough for him. And so I could
only say, in my heart, “Lord, let matters stand as
they are, but do not help the Frenchman any more

REAPPEARANCE OF THE NORTH STAR 267

just now, for what would suit him well would ruin
me!”

I remembered that when a lad I heard a captain
often say in meeting that in answer to a prayer of
his own the wind changed from southeast to north-
west, entirely to his satisfaction. He was a good
man, but did this glorify the Architect —the Ruler
of the winds and the waves? Moreover, it was not
a trade-wind, as I remember it, that changed for
him, but one of the variables which will change
when you ask it, if you ask long enough. Again,
this man’s brother maybe was not bound the op-
posite way, well content with a fair wind himself,
which made all the difference in the world.

On May 18, 1898, is written large in the Spray’s
log-book: “ To-night, in latitude 7° 13’ N., for the
first time in nearly three years I see the north star."
The Spray on the day following logged one hun-
dred and forty-seven miles. To this I add thirty-
five miles for current sweeping her onward. On
the 20th of May, about sunset, the island of To-
bago, off the Orinoco, came into view, bearing west
by north, distant twenty-two miles. The Spray
was drawing rapidly toward her home destination.
Later at night, while running free along the coast
of Tobago, the wind still blowing fresh, I was star-
tled by the sudden flash of breakers on the port
bow and not far off. I luffed instantly offshore,
and then tacked, heading in for the island. Find-

1 The Bishop of Melbourne (commend me to his teachings) refused to set
‘aside a day of prayer for rain, recommending his people to husband water
when the rainy season was on. In like manner, a navigator husbands the
wind, keeping a weather-gage where practicable.

268 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

ing myself, shortly after, close in with the land, I
tacked again offshore, but without much altering
the bearings of the danger. Sail whichever way I
would, it seemed clear that if the sloop weathered
the rocks at all it would be a close shave, and I
watched with anxiety, while beating against the
current, always losing ground. So the matter stood
hour after hour, while I watched the flashes of light
thrown up as regularly as the beats of the long
ocean swells, and always they seemed just a little
nearer. It was evidently a coral reef,—of this I
had not the slightest doubt,—and a bad reef at
that. Worse still, there might be other reefs ahead
forming a bight into which the current would
sweep me, and where I should be hemmed in and
finally wrecked. I had not sailed these waters since
a lad, and lamented the day I had allowed on
board the goat that ate my chart. I taxed my
memory of sea lore, of wrecks on sunken reefs, and
of pirates harbored among coral reefs where other
ships might not come, but nothing that I could
think of applied to the island of Tobago, save the
one wreck of Robinson Crusoe’s ship in the fiction,
and that gave me little information about reefs.
I remembered only that in Crusoe’s case he kept
his powder dry. “But there she booms again,” I
cried, “and how close the flash is now! Almost
aboard was that last breaker! But you'll go by,
Spray, old girl! "T is abeam now! One surge
more! and oh, one more like that will clear your
ribs and keel!” And I slapped her on the tran-
som, proud of her last noble effort to leap clear
of the danger, when a wave greater than the rest

THE LIGHT ON TRINIDAD 269

threw her higher than before, and, behold, from
the crest of it was revealed at once all there was of
the reef. I fell back in a coil of rope, speechless
and amazed, not distressed, but rejoiced. Alad-
din’s lamp! My fisherman’s own lantern! It was
the great revolving light on the island of Trinidad,
thirty miles away, throwing flashes over the waves,
which had deceived me! The orb of the light was
now dipping on the horizon, and how glorious was
the sight of it! But, dear Father Neptune, as I
live, after a long life at sea, and much among
corals, I would have made a solemn declaration to
that reef! Through all the rest of the night I saw
imaginary reefs, and not knowing what moment
the sloop might fetch up on a real one, I tacked off
and on till daylight, as nearly as possible in the
same track, all for the want of a chart. I could
have nailed the St. Helena goat’s pelt to the deck.
My course was now for Grenada, to which I car-
ried letters from Mauritius. About midnight of
the 22d of May I arrived at the island, and cast
anchor in the roads off the town of St. George,
entering the inner harbor at daylight on the morn-
ing of the 23d, which made forty-two days’ sailing
from the Cape of Good Hope. It was a good run,
and I doffed my cap again to the pilot of the Pinta.
Lady Bruce, in a note to the Spray at Port Louis,
said Grenada was a lovely island, and she wished
the sloop might call there on the voyage home.
When the Spray arrived, I found that she had
been fully expected. “How so?” I asked. “Oh,
we heard that you were at Mauritius,” they said,
“and from Mauritius, after meeting Sir Charles

270 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

Bruce, our old governor, we knew you would come to
Grenada.” This wasa charming introduction, and it
brought me in eontaet with people worth knowing.

The Spray sailed from Grenada on the 28th of
May, and coasted along under the lee of the An-
tilles, arriving at the island of Dominica on the
30th, where, for the want of knowing better, I east
anchor at the quarantine ground; for I was still
without a chart of the islands, not having been able
to get one even at Grenada. Here I not only met
with further disappointment in the matter, but was
threatened with a fine for the mistake I made in
the anchorage. There were no ships either at the
quarantine or at the commercial roads, and I could
not see that it made much difference where I an-
chored. Buta negro chap, a sort of deputy harbor-
master, coming along, thought it did, and he
ordered me to shift to the other anchorage, which,
in truth, I had already investigated and did not
like, because of the heavier roll there from the sea.
And so instead of springing to the sails at once to
shift, I said I would leave outright as soon as I
could procure a chart, which I begged he would
send and get forme. “But I say you mus’ move
befo you gets anyt’ing "t all," heinsisted, and raisin g
his voice so that all the people alongshore could hear
him, he added, “Am jes now!” Then he flew into
à towering passion when they on shore snickered
to see the erew of the Spray sitting calmly by
the bulwark instead of hoisting sail. “I tell you
dis am quarantine,” he shouted, very much louder
than before. “That’s all right, general,” 1 replied;
“T want to be quarantined anyhow.” “That ’s

TALKS TO FRIENDLY AUDITORS 271

right, boss,” some one on the beach cried, “that’s
right; you get quarantined,” while others shouted
to the deputy to “make de white trash move ‘long
out o' dat.” They were about equally divided on
the island for and against me. The man who had
made so much fuss over the matter gave it up
when he found that I wished to be quarantined,
and sent for an all-important half-white, who soon
came alongside, starched from clue to earing. He
stood in the boat as straight up and down as a
fathom of pump-water—a marvel of importance.
“Charts!” cried I, as soon as his shirt-collar
appeared over the sloop’s rail; “have you any
charts?” “No, sah,” he replied with much-stiffened
dignity; *no, sah; cha’ts do’s n't grow on dis isl-
and.” Not doubting the information, I tripped an-
chor immediately, as I had intended to do from the
first, and made all sail for St. John, Antigua, where
I arrived on the 1st of June, having sailed with
great caution in midchannel all the way.

The Spray, always in good company, now fell in
with the port officers’ steam-launch at the harbor
entrance, having on board Sir Francis Fleming,
governor of the Leeward Islands, who, to the
delight of “all hands,” gave the officer in charge
instructions to tow my ship into port. On the fol-
lowing day his Excellency and Lady Fleming,
along with Captain Burr, R. N., paid me a visit.
The court-house was tendered free to me at An-
tigua,as was done also at Grenada, and at each
place a highly intelligent audience filled the hall
to listen to a talk about the seas the Spray had
erossed, and the countries she had visited.

CHAPTER XXI

Clearing for home — In the calm belt — A sea covered with sargasso
— The jibstay parts in a gale— Welcomed by a tornado off Fire
Island — A change of plan — Arrival at Newport — End of a cruise
of over forty-six thousand miles — The Spray again at Fairhaven.

N the 4th of June, 1898, the Spray cleared from
the United States consulate, and her license to
sail single-handed, even round the world, was re-
turned to her for the last time. The United States
consul, Mr. Hunt, before handing the paper to me,
wrote on it, as General Roberts had done at Cape
Town, a short commentary on the voyage. The
document, by regular course, is now lodged in
the Treasury Department at Washington, D. C.
On June 5, 1898, the Spray sailed for a home
port, heading first direct for Cape Hatteras. On
the 8th of June she passed under the sun from
south to north; the sun’s declination on that day
was 22° 54’, and the latitude of the Spray was the
same just before noon. Many think it is exces-
sively hot right under the sun. It is not neces-
sarily so. As a matter of fact the thermometer
stands at a bearable point whenever there is a
breeze and a ripple on the sea, even exactly under
the sun. It is often hotter in cities and on sandy

shores in higher latitudes.
272

IN THE CALM BELT 273

The Spray was booming joyously along for home
now, making her usual good time, when of a sud-
den she struck the horse latitudes, and her sail
flapped limp in a ealm. I had almost forgotten
this calm belt, or had come to regard it as a myth.
I now found it real, however, and diffienlt to cross.
This was as it should have been, for, after all of
the dangers of the sea, the dust-storm on the coast
of Africa, the “rain of blood? in Australia, and
the war risk when nearing home, a natural expe-
rience would have been missing had the calm of
the horse latitudes been left out. Anyhow, a philo-
sophical turn of thought now was not amiss, else
one’s patience would have given out almost at the
harbor entrance. The term of her probation was
eight days. Evening after evening during this
time I read by the light of a candle on deck. There
was no wind at all, and the sea became smooth and
monotonous. For three days I saw a full-rigged
ship on the horizon, also becalmed.

Sargasso, scattered over the sea in bunches, or
trailed curiously along down the wind in narrow
lanes, now gathered together in great fields, strange
sea-animals, little and big, swimming in and out,
the most curious among them being a tiny sea-
horse which I captured and brought home preserved
in a bottle. But on the 18th of June a gale began
to blow from the southwest, and the sargasso was
dispersed again in windrows and lanes.

On this day there was soon wind enough and to
spare. The same might have been said of the sea
The Spray was in the midst of the turbulent Gulf
Stream itself. She was jumping like a porpoise

274 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

over the uneasy waves. As if to make up for lost
time, she seemed to touch only the high places.
Under a sudden shock and strain her rigging began
to give out. First the main-sheet strap was carried
away, and then the peak halyard-block broke from
the gaff. It was time to reef and refit, and so when
* all hands” eame on deck I went about doing that.

The 19th of June was fine, but on the morning
of the 20th another gale was blowing, accompanied
by cross-seas that tumbled about and shook things
up with great confusion. Just as I was thinking
about taking in sail the jibstay broke at the mast-
head, and fell, jib and all, into the sea. It gave me
the strangest sensation to see the bellying sail fall,
and where it had been suddenly to see only space.
However, I was at the bows, with presence of mind
to gather it in on the first wave that rolled up, be-
fore it was torn or trailed under the sloop’s bottom.
I found by the amount of work done in three min-
utes'or less time that I had by no means grown
stiff-jointed on the voyage; anyhow, seurvy had
not set in, and being now within a few degrees
of home, I might complete the voyage, I thought,
without the aid of a doctor. Yes, my health was
still good, and I could skip about the decks in a
lively manner, but could I climb? The great King
Neptune tested me severely at this time, for the
stay being gone, the mast itself switched about like
a reed, and was not easy to climb; but a gun-tackle
purehase was got up, and the stay set taut from
the masthead, for [ had spare blocks and rope on
Soard with whieh to rig it, and the jib, with a reef
in it, was soon pulling again like a “sodger” for

A TORNADO OFF FIRE ISLAND 275

home. Had the Spray’s mast not been well
stepped, however, it would have been “John
Walker” when the stay broke. Good work in
the building of my vessel stood me always in
good stead.

On the 23d of June I was at last tired, tired, tired
of baffling squalls and fretful cobble-seas. I had not
seen a vessel for days and days, where I had expected
the company of at least a schooner now and then.
As to the whistling of the wind through the rig-
ging, and the slopping of the sea against the sloop’s
sides, that was well enough in its way, and we
could not have got on without it, the Spray and I;
but there was so much of it now, and it lasted so
long! At noon of that day a winterish storm was
upon us from the nor’west. In the Gulf Stream,
thus late in June, hailstones were pelting the Spray,
and lightning was pouring down from the clouds,
not in flashes alone, but in almost continuous
streams. By slants, however, day and night I
worked the sloop in toward the coast, where, on the
25th of June, off Fire Island, she fell into the tor-
nado which, an hour earlier, had swept over New
York city with lightning that wrecked buildings
and sent trees flying about in splinters; even ships
at docks had parted their moorings and smashed
into other ships, doing great damage. It was the
climax storm of the voyage, but I saw the unmis-
takable character of it in time to have all snug
aboard and receive it under bare poles. Even so,
the sloop shivered when it struck her, and she
heeled over unwillingly on her beam ends; but
rounding to, with a sea-anchor ahead, she righted

276 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

and faced out the storm. In the midst of the gale
I could do no more than look on, for what is a man
in a storm like this? I had seen one electric storm
on the voyage, off the coast of Madagascar, but it
was unlike this one. Here the lightning kept on
longer, and thunderbolts fell in the sea all about.
Up to this time I was bound for New York; but
when all was over I rose, made sail, and hove the
sloop round from starboard to port tack, to make
for a quiet harbor to think the matter over; and
so, under short sail, she reached in for the coast of
Long Island, while I sat thinking and watching
the lights of coasting-vessels which now began to
appear in sight. Reflections of the voyage so
nearly finished stole in upon me now; many tunes
I had hummed again and again came back once
more. I found myself repeating fragments of a
hymn often sung by a dear Christian woman of
Fairhaven when I was rebuilding the Spray. Iwas
to hear once more and only once, in profound so-
lemnity, the metaphorical hymn:

By waves and wind I'm tossed and driven.
And again:

But still my little ship outbraves
The blust'ring winds and stormy waves.

After this storm I saw the pilot of the Pinta no
more.

The experiences of the voyage of the Spray,
reaching over three years, had been to me like
reading a book, and one that was more and more

ARRIVAL AT NEWPORT 277

interesting as I turned the pages, till I had come
now to the last page of all, and the one more inter-
esting than any of the rest.

When daylight came I saw that the sea had
changed color from dark green to light. I threw
the lead and got soundings in thirteen fathoms. I
made the land soon after, some miles east of Fire
Island, and sailing thence before a pleasant breeze
along the coast, made for Newport. The weather
after the furious gale was remarkably fine. The
Spray rounded Montauk Point early in the after-
noon; Point Judith was abeam at dark ; she fetched
in at Beavertail next. Sailing on, she had one
more danger to pass — Newport harbor was mined.
The Spray hugged the rocks along where neither
friend nor foe could come if drawing much water,
and where she would not disturb the guard-ship in
the channel. It was close work, but it was safe
enough so long as she hugged the rocks close, and
not the mines. Flitting by a low point abreast of
the guard-ship, the dear old Dexter, which I knew
well, some one on board of her sang out, “ There
goes a craft!” I threw up a light at once and
heard the hail, “Spray, ahoy!” It was the voice
of a friend, and I knew that a friend would not fire
on the Spray. I eased off the main-sheet now, and
the Spray swung off for the beacon-lights of the
inner harbor. At last she reached port in safety,
and there at 1 A. M. on June 27, 1898, cast anchor,
after the cruise of more than forty-six thousand
miles round the world, during an absence of three
years and two months, with two days over for
coming up.

278 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

Was the crew well? Was Inot? Thad profited
in many ways by the voyage. I had even gained
flesh, and actually weighed a pound more than
when I sailed from Boston. As foraging, why, the
dial of my life was turned back till my friends all
said, “ Slocum is young again.” And so I was, at
least ten years younger than the day I felled the
first tree for the construction of the Spray.

My ship was also in better condition than when
she sailed from Boston on her long voyage. She
was still as sound as a nut, and as tight as the
best ship afloat. She did not leak a drop— not:
one drop! The pump, which had been little used
before reaching Australia, had not boom rigged
since that at all.

The first name on the Spray's visitors book in
the home port was written by the one who always
said, “The Spray will come back? The Spray was
not quite satisfied till I sailed her around to her
birthplace, Fairhaven, Massachusetts, farther along.
I had myself a desire to return to the place of the
very beginning whence I had, as I have said, re-
newed myage. So on July 3, with a fair wind, she
waltzed beautifully round the coast and up the
Acushnet River to Fairhaven, where I secured her
to the cedar spile driven in the bank to hold her
when she was launched. I could bring her no
nearer home.

If the Spray discovered no continents on her
voyage, it may be that there were no more con-
tinents to be discovered; she did not seek new
worlds, or sail to powwow about the dangers of
the seas. The sea has been much maligned. To

ARRIVAL AT NEWPORT 279

find ones way to lands already diseovered is a
good thing, and the Spray made the discovery that
even the worst sea is not so terrible to a well-
appointed ship. No king, no country, no treasury
at all, was taxed for the voyage of the Spray, and
she aecomplished all that she undertook to do.

To succeed, however, in anything at all, one
should go understandingly about his work and be
prepared for every emergency. I see, as I look
baek over my own small achievement, a kit of not
too elaborate carpenters’ tools, a tin clock, and
some carpet-tacks, not a great many, to facilitate
the enterprise as already mentioned in the story.
But above all to be taken into account were some
years of schooling, where I studied with diligence
Neptune’s laws, and these laws I tried to obey
when I sailed overseas; it was worth the while.

And now, without having wearied my friends, I
hope, with detailed scientific accounts, theories, or
deductions, I will only say that I have endeavored
to tell just the story of the adventure itself. This,
in my own poor way, having been done, I now
moor ship, weather-bitt cables, and leave the sloop
Spray, for the present, safe in port.

APPENDIX

Again tied to the old stake at Fairhaven.

APPENDIX

LINES AND SAIL-PLAN OF THE “SPRAY”

Her pedigree so far as known — The Lines of the Spray— Her
self-steering qualities — Sail-plan and steering-gear— An un-
precedented feat — A final word of cheer to would-be navigators

ROM a feeling of diffidence toward sailors of
great experience, I refrained, in the preceding
chapters as prepared for serial publication in the
“Century Magazine,” from entering fully into the
details of the Spray’s build, and of the primitive
methods employed to sail her. Having had no
yachting experience at all, I had no means of
knowing that the trim vessels seen in our harbors
and near the land could not all do as much, or even
more, than the Spray, sailing, for example, on a
course with the helm lashed.

I was aware that no other vessel had sailed in
this manner around the globe, but would have been
loath to say that another could not do it, or that
many men had not sailed vessels of a certain rig in
that manner as far as they wished to go. I was
greatly amused, therefore, by the flat assertions of
an expert that it could not be done.

The Spray, as I sailed her, was entirely a new
boat, built over from a sloop which bore the same
name, and which, tradition said, had first served as

283

284 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

an oysterman, about a hundred years ago, on the
coast of Delaware. "There was no record in the
custom-house of where she was built. She was once
owned at Noank, Connecticut, afterward in New
Bedford and when Captain Eben Pierce presented

WHEEL

WINDOW

i H
i N
i
[nee A uu Esa

Uy MT POE 3

Gun Roor.

i | Sow.
SHELF | BO

—À— — —

Plan of the after cabin of the Spray.

her to me, at the end of her natural life, she stood, as
I have already described, propped up in a field at
Fairhaven. Her lines were supposed to be those
of a North Sea fisherman. In rebuilding timber
by timber and plank by plank, I added to her free-

THE LINES OF THE *SPRAY" 285

board twelve inches amidships, eighteen inches for-
ward, and fourteen inches aft, thereby increasing
her sheer, and making her, as I thought, a better
deep-water ship. I will not repeat the history of
the rebuilding of the Spray, which I have detailed
in my first chapter, except to say that, when fin-
ished, her dimensions were thirty-six feet nine
inches over all, fourteen feet two inches wide, and
four feet two inches deep in the hold, her tonnage
being nine tons net, and twelve and seventy one-
hundredths tons gross.

I gladly produce the lines of the Spray, with such
hints as my really limited fore-and-aft sailing will
allow, my seafaring life having been spent mostly
in barks and ships. No pains have been spared to
give them accurately. The Spray was taken from
New York to Bridgeport, Connecticut, and, under
the supervision of the Park City Yacht Club, was
hauled out of water and very carefully measured
in every way to secure a satisfactory result. Cap-
tain Robins produced the model Our young
yachtsmen, pleasuring in the “lilies of the sea,”
very naturally will not think favorably of my craft.
They have a right to their opinion, while I stick to
mine. "They will take exceptions to her short ends,
the advantage of these being most apparent in a
heavy sea.

Some things about the Spray's deck might be
fashioned differently without materially affecting
the vessel. I know of no good reason why for
a party-boat a cabin trunk might not be built
amidships instead of far aft, like the one on her,
which leaves a very narrow space between the

286 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

wheel and the line of the eompanionway. Some
even say that I might have improved the shape
of her stern. I do not know about that. The
water leaves her run sharp after bearing her to
the last inch, and no suction is formed by undue
eutaway.

Smooth-water sailors say, “ Where is her over-
hang?" They never crossed the Gulf Stream in
a nor'easter, and they do not know what is best
in all weathers. For your life, build no fantail
overhang on a craft going offshore. As a sailor
judges his prospective ship by a “blow of the
eye” when he takes interest enough to look her
over at all, so I judged the Spray, and I was not
deceived.

In a sloop-rig the Spray made that part of her
voyage reaching from Boston through the Strait of
Magellan, during which she experienced the great-
est variety of weather conditions. The yawl-rig
then adopted was an improvement only in that it
reduced the size of a rather heavy mainsail and
slightly improved her steering qualities on the
wind. When the wind was aft the jigger was not
in use; invariably it was then furled. With her
boom broad off and with the wind two points on
the quarter the Spray sailed her truest course. It
never took long to find the amount of helm, or
angle of rudder, required to hold her on her course,
and when that was found I lashed the wheel with
it at that angle. The mainsail then drove her,
and the main-jib, with its sheet boused flat amid-
ships or a little to one side or the other, added
greatly to the steadying power. Then if the wind
was even strong or squally I would sometimes set

HER SELF-STEERING QUALITIES 287

4
m
š
Š
9

SCALE OF FEET |

Deck-plan of the Spray.

a flying-jib also,
on à pole rigged
out on the bow-
sprit, with the
Sheets hauled flat
amidships, which
was a safe thing to
do, even in a gale
of wind. A stout
downhaul on the
gaff was a neces-
sity, because with-
out it the mainsail
might not have
come down when I
wished to lower it
in a breeze. The
amount of helm
required varied
aecording to the
amount of wind
and its direction.
These points are
quickly gathered
from practice.
Briefly I have
to say that when
close-hauled in a
light wind under
all sail she re-
quired little or
no weather helm.
As the wind in-
creased I would go

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SAIL-PLAN AND STEERING-GEAR 289

on deck, if below, and turn the wheel up a spoke
more or less, relash it, or, as sailors say, put it in a
becket, and then leave it as before.

To answer the questions that might be asked to
meet every contingency would be a pleasure, but
it would overburden my book. I can only say
here that much comes to one in practice, and
that, with such as love sailing, mother-wit is the

Steering-gear of the Spray.

The dotted lines are the ropes used to lash the wheel. In practice the loose ends were belayed, one
over the other, around the top spokes of the wheel.

best teacher, after experience. Labor-saving appli-
ances? There were none. The sails were hoisted
by hand; the halyards were rove through ordinary
ships’ blocks with common patent rollers. Of
course the sheets were all belayed aft.

The windlass used was in the shape of a winch,
or crab, I think it is called. I had three anchors,

290 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

weighing forty pounds, one hundred pounds, and
one hundred and eighty pounds respectively. ‘The
windlass and the forty-pound anchor, and the “ fid-
dle-head,” or carving, on the end of the cutwater,
belonged to the original Spray. The ballast, con-
crete cement, was stanchioned down securely.
There was no iron or lead or other weight on the
keel.

If I took measurements by rule I did not set
them down, and after sailing even the longest voy-
age in her I could not tell offhand the length of her
mast, boom, or gaff. I did not know the center of
effort in her sails, except as it hit me in practice at
sea, nor did I care a rope yarn about it. Mathe-
matical calculations, however, are all right in a
good boat, and the Spray could have stood them.
She was easily balanced and easily kept in trim.

Some of the oldest and ablest shipmasters have
asked how it was possible for her to hold a true
course before the wind, which was just what the
Spray did for weeks together. One of these gen-
tlemen, a highly esteemed shipmaster and friend,
testified as government expert in a famous mur-
der trial in Boston, not long since, that a ship
would not hold her course long enough for the
steersman to leave the helm to cut the captain’s
throat. Ordinarily it would be so. One might say
that with a square-rigged ship it would always be
so. But the Spray, at the moment of the tragedy in
question, was sailing around the globe with no one
at the helm, except at intervals more or less rare.
However, I may say here that this would have had
no bearing on the murder ease in Boston. In all

' AN UNPRECEDENTED FEAT 291

probability Justice laid her hand on the true rogue.
In other words, in the case of a model and rig simi-
lar to that of the tragedy ship, I should myself
testify as did the nautical experts at the trial.

But see the run the Spray made from Thursday
Island to the Keeling Cocos Islands, twenty-seven
hundred miles distant, in twenty-three days, with
no one at the helm in that time, save for about
one hour, from land to land. No other ship in the

Body-plan of the Spray.

history of the world ever performed, under similar
circumstances, the feat on so long and continuous
a voyage. It was, however, a delightful midsum-
mer sail. No one can know the pleasure of sailing
free over the great oceans save those who have had
the experience. It is not necessary, in order to
realize the utmost enjoyment of going around the
globe, to sail alone, yet for once and the first time
there was a great deal of fun in it. My friend the

292 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

government expert, and saltest of salt sea-captains,
standing only yesterday on the deck of the Spray,
was convinced of her famous qualities, and he
spoke enthusiastically of selling his farm on Cape
Cod and putting to sea again.

To young men contemplating a voyage I would
say go. The tales of rough usage are for the most
part exaggerations, as also are the stories of sea
danger. I had a fair schooling in the so-called
“hard ships? on the hard Western Ocean, and in
the years there I do not remember having once
been “called out of my name.” Such recollections
have endeared the sea to me. I owe it further to the
officers of all the ships I ever sailed in as boy and
man to say that not one ever lifted so much as a
finger to me. I did not live among angels, but
among men who could be roused. My wish was,
though, to please the officers of my ship wherever I
was, and so I got on. Dangers there are, to be
sure, on the sea as well as on the land, but the in-
telligence and skill God gives to man reduce these to
a minimum. And here comes in again the skilfully
modeled ship worthy to sail the seas.

To face the elements is, to be sure, no light mat-
ter when the sea is in its grandest mood. You
must then know the sea, and know that you know
it, and not forget that it was made to be sailed
over.

I have given in the plans of the Spray the di-
mensions of such a ship as I should call seaworthy
in all conditions of weather and on all seas. It is
only right to say, though, that to insure a reasona-
ble measure of success, experience should sail with

io E CHRIS
neers,
SSS
re

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h:
p7

SS
—

SS STS
[oed
— MG
Sel goes
e

294 SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

theship. But in order to be a successful navigator
or sailor it is not necessary to hang a tar-bucket
about one’s neck. On the other hand, mueh
thought concerning the brass buttons one should
wear adds nothing to the safety of the ship.

I may some day see reason to modify the model
of the dear old Spray, but out of my limited expe-
rience I strongly recommend her wholesome lines
over those of pleasure-fliers for safety. Practice in
a craft such as the Spray will teach young sailors
and fit them for the more important vessels. I my-
self learned more seamanship, I think, on the Spray
than on any other ship I ever sailed, and as for
patience, the greatest of all the virtues, even while
sailing through the reaches of the Strait of Magel-
lan, between the bluff mainland and dismal Fuego,
where through intricate sailing I was obliged to
steer, I learned to sit by the wheel, content to make
ten miles a day beating against the tide, and when
a month at that was all lost, I could find some old
tune to hum while I worked the route all over
again, beating as before. Nor did thirty hours at
the wheel, in storm, overtax my human endurance,
and to clap a hand to an oar and pull into or out of -
port in a calm was no strange experience for the
crew of the Spray. The days passed happily with
me wherever my ship sailed.

E dur OIR
EMUT N>
I^

HÀ MÁS Jp

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